With backgrounds ranging from India and Thailand to Brazil, Iran, and Greece, these talents prove that there is still much to explore in fashion
Are you ready to define your identity as a designer? It’s not an easy journey, but Istituto Marangoni London’s Fashion Design students have embraced the challenge this year. They have delved deep into their identities in the “Graduate Collection Fashion Show 2024 – Define Identities” with great experimentation.
If fashion shapes identities, then these emerging designers are certainly heading in the right direction to define their unique styles. In an immersive experience, the public was captivated by the courageous creativity, innovative use of upcycling in designs, technical prowess, and individuality of the 10 finalists at this degree show.
With diverse international backgrounds, these rising talents demonstrate that there is still much to explore in fashion. So, buckle up and get ready to embark on an exciting journey through their creativity!
Iccha Manav Bajaj – INDIA – Wounds of Humanity
💫 Style: “I like to wear something special; my collection is completely different from my personal style.”
💣 Strength: Working on textile prints, creative manipulation
🖤 Passion: Activism, animal cruelty-free
🪡 Inspiration: Personal stories, social causes
Iccha Manav Bajaj’s degree collection, Wounds of Humanity
Iccha Manav Bajaj’s collection, Wounds of Humanity, makes a bold statement of activism against animal cruelty on the runway of the latest Istituto Marangoni London graduate show.
The oversized silhouettes powerfully convey the message of being a voice for the voiceless, with the designer expressing emotional vulnerability through hand-dyed prints, intricate hand embroidery featuring red coral beads, and evocative wounded manipulations.
The fabric choices are environmentally emblematic, including organic eucalyptus, rose cotton, recycled denim, and vegan leather. The standout piece is a crochet headgear crafted from dog fur yarn collected as waste from grooming centres for pets.
“The long black coat is made of handmade painted fabric,” said Iccha Manav Bajaj. “I like the aggressive brush strokes I created as an abstract expression of my intentions.”
Peter Thanapon Barker-Bennett - THAILAND + UK - Somewhere
💫 Style: “I have an everyday uniform: t-shirt and jeans, but my collection looks inward.”
💣 Strength: Building visual narratives, fabric selection
🖤 Passion: Independent films and photography
🪡 Inspiration: Costume design, sportswear, “Lost in Translation” by Sofia Coppola
Peter Thanaphon Barker-Bennett’s degree collection, Somewhere
Peter Thanaphon Barker-Bennett’s collection titled Somewhere is a heartfelt tribute to filmmaking and photography, capturing the disillusioned emotions of coming-of-age through his garments.
Using soft pastel hues and sheer silks, this up-and-coming fashion designer presents delicate and ethereal homoerotic menswear.
Drawing inspiration from Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation,” he explores themes of sensuality and homoeroticism with loose silhouettes, delicate rouge applications, and shimmering fabrics.
Much like a cinematic frame, Peter Thanaphon Barker-Bennett embeds a Tokyo night street scene onto a shirt, seamlessly blending underwear with sportswear. This fusion artfully portrays the complex struggles of youth, encompassing loneliness, sensuality, and femininity.
Jayna Jain - INDIA - Written by Nature
💫 Style: “A contrast between minimalism and maximalism, balancing formal and street style.”
💣 Strength: Textile selection and manipulation, such as felting, quilting, embroidery, colours and oversized outerwear
🖤 Passion: Travelling into nature and cityscapes, learning from abstract art exhibitions
🪡 Inspiration: Contemporary silhouettes inspired by nature and cityscapes
Jayna Jain’s degree collection, Written by Nature
Jayna Jain’s collection, Written by Nature, is a tribute to the profound connection between humans and nature, conceptualising natural elements in fluid garments.
Inspired by Indian philosophy, this rising fashion designer uses innovative garment design and handmade textile experimentation, creating felted wool and embroidered linen with minimal wavy water designs.
In Jayna Jain’s graduate collection, digitally designed bubbled prints combined with quilting represent air and water, while oversized, relaxed silhouettes evoke the simplicity of natural shapes.
The palette of earthy mulberry contrasts with the light blue of a clear sky, embracing an optimistic approach that transcends traditional fashion boundaries.
Tara Adineh - IRAN - The Absurd Hero
💫 Style: “I have never considered having a style; like my personality, I dress as I feel.”
💣 Strength: Fabric experimentation, new materials
🖤 Passion: Avant-garde arts and installations 🪡
🪡Inspiration: Basket-weaving crafts and mythology (the Myth of Sisyphus)
Tara Adineh’s degree collection, The Absurd Hero
Tara Adineh’s collection, The Absurd Hero, interprets human existence by transitioning basket-making into garments that wrap the body like cocoons.
Inspired by the Myth of Sisyphus and Albert Camus’ philosophy of the absurd, this rising talent transforms the concept of the absurd hero’s basket of rocks into design pieces that metaphorically turn the body into stone.
Tara Adineh’s basket-weaving innovation involves transitioning knitting to flat, rigid stitched ropes, transforming a traditional craft into fabric, saving waste, and creating a sense of unity with the task.
Theo Moraes Garcia de Campos - BRAZIL - As the Solid Meets the Fluid
💫 Style: “Bold and black, big silhouettes and oversized designs represent my aesthetic and perfectly match my collection.”
💣 Strength: Fabric manipulation and texture, textile experimentation and innovation
🖤 Passion: Envisioning and transforming ideas into practice
🪡 Inspiration: Texture and material, environment, and encounters with people in cities
Theo Moraes Garcia de Campos' degree collection, As the Solid Meets the Fluid
The zeitgeist collection, As the Solid Meets the Fluid, designed by Theo Moraes Garcia de Campos, addresses fabric waste by transforming it into an upcycling fashion statement.
Inspired by the rough texture of rocks and the delicate movement of water, this new designer repurposes fabric scraps from London garment manufacturers and dead stock into oversized designs to exaggerate proportions.
In Theo Moraes Garcia de Campos’s graduate collection, flowy draped trousers in lightweight fabrics contrast with a bold bomber and dark cape featuring crunched pleated fabric manipulations, raw edges, and heavyweight fabrics styled with a Brazilian fisherman hat.
Punn Viravaidhya - THAILAND - The State of Being Distinct
💫 Style: “Utilitarian style; it is hard to define streetwear, but I like Japanese designers. They have a unique way of mixing contemporary and traditional design, and I am inspired by subculture aesthetics.”
💣 Strength: Versatile in designing garments from paper drawings, adding details
🖤 Passion: Exploring street photography, car racing, and gaming
🪡 Inspiration: Japanese car racing culture, Japanese workwear functionality
Punn Viravaidhya’s degree collection, The State of Being Distinct
Punn Viravaidhya’s degree collection, The State of Being Distinct, translates his passion for modified Japanese car culture into a unique sense of fashion design.
For this young designer, deconstructing and composing garments is akin to assembling the mechanical parts of a car.
His innovative designs use unconventional fabrics such as car seat materials and carbon fibre, incorporating harnesses, seatbelts, gloves, and reflectors into silhouettes inspired by traditional Japanese workwear, merging them with contemporary design.
Anneka Taylor - UNITED KINGDOM - Beauty and Deception
💫 Style: “Sophisticated clothes, classic and minimalist style; definitely like my collection.”
💣 Strength: Translating illustrations and drawings into 3D work and draping
🖤 Passion: Still life drawing and discovering emerging music artists
🪡 Inspiration: A combination of artistic expression, drawing, and music
Anneka Taylor’s degree collection, Beauty and Deception
Anneka Taylor’s collection, Beauty and Deception, showcases a striking duality between light and darkness, combining burning rose petals with modern elegance.
The inspiration came from the haunting melody of “Hotel California” by the Eagles, capturing themes of entrapment, illusion, and the perpetual dance of asymmetric silhouettes with dynamic tension and layers of jersey in darker tones.
Anneka Taylor’s design innovation springs from burning petals, an accident that enriched the sophisticated design. Burned lambskin fragments, crinkled into petals, are then applied as handmade roses on puffed sleeves, blending a modern-day femme fatale look with darker mystery and allure.
Supatra Limthanaporn - THAILAND - Deux Femme
💫 Style: “Dark monotone, feminine but strong aesthetic; the collection is my style but richer in fabric.”
💣 Strength: Silhouettes, collages and textile manipulation, plus the process of creating new colour effects with bleaching experimentation
🖤 Passion: Historical fiction and costume design, music
🪡 Inspiration: Contemporary art and photography, feminism and social contrasts
Supatra Limthanaporn’s degree collection, Deux Femme
Supatra Limthanaporn’s collection, Deux Femme, interprets the duality of the feminine personality through draping fluid silhouettes contrasted with oversized, masculine uniforms.
Inspired by Gjon Mili’s stop-motion photography of Pablo Picasso’s “light drawing” artwork, this new talent blends art with garments, capturing the interplay of light and dark.
Beginning with men’s uniform styles, Supatra Limthanaporn envisions a femme fatale who is comfortable in her femininity, draped in flowing, body-revealing tops and skirts. She incorporates cutouts, bleached lace, and stretch fabrics manipulated over the female body like art collages.
Hityshi Dwarkanath - INDIA - ‘It’Em Girl
💫 Style: “I am maximalist in style; I wear craftsmanship design pieces and play with experimental shapes.”
💣 Strength: Garment construction, embroidery and handwork, fabric and textiles
🖤 Passion: Subcultures, cultural spaces, and music as forms of self-expression
🪡 Inspiration: Life experiences, social causes, and fashion as mediums to explore answers to social values
Hityshi Dwarkanath's degree collection, ‘It’Em Girl
‘It’Em Girl is a collection by Hityshi Dwarkanath that uncovers the objectification of femininity.
Referencing Indian heritage, this fashion designer adorns the garments with symbols representing women, such as bells echoing the walks in ancient Indian palaces and protective mirrors stitched around objectified body parts on silk over construction garments.
Hityshi Dwarkanath builds disproportionate silhouettes, navigating through the opposites and intersections of femininity and masculinity with the intention of deconstructing femininity and reconstructing it through a personal lens.
Melania Meleloudi - GREECE – Catharsis
💫 Style: “Minimalist yet avant-garde retro-feminism style.”
💣 Strength: Draping, pattern cutting, creating silhouettes
🖤 Passion: Classical music, leisure activities such as tennis, literature, and arts with social and political messages
🪡 Inspiration: Music spectrum from classical to rock, translated into architecture and emotions
Melania Meleloudi's degree collection, Catharsis
Melania Meleloudi creates the collection Catharsis, reflecting the experience of change as a personal narrative of growth through oversized architectural garments.
Inspired by the stillness of Greek caryatids and the artistic light installations of James Turrell, this new talent interprets flawless jersey as skin supported by unseen rough structures in gradient colours.
Melania Meleloudi works to design new patterns, crafting garments from fabric scraps and creating flowy, liberating clothing with interconnected and free-flowing movements.
Silvia De Vecchi
University Librarian, London
