LONDON — Petra Fagerstrom and William Palmer received the top L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award at the annual Central Saint Martins MA Fashion press show Thursday evening. Yu Masui, the eccentric Japanese influencer and talent scout for the LVMH Prize, picked the winners.
Fagerstrom and Palmer were part of a lineup of 18 students, showcasing a wide array of fresh ideas, explorations of the body and high concepts.
Masui said Fagerstrom stood out by blending AI with traditional craftmanship, while Palmer shined for his satirical take on British cliches and preconceived notion of masculinity.
A graduate of Parsons Paris, Fagerstrom has been building a presence in the industry with her namesake brand with the Swedish Fashion Council shortly after she started at CSM. Charli XCX has been spotted wearing her leather pieces a few times.
For the graduate collection, she turned AI glitches into real-life, complex, deconstructed creations.
“An AI doesn’t understand clothes. It merges things in a very flat way, and it creates these kinds of weird, deconstructed garments that don’t work physically. So I looked at these glitches and fails, and then tried to find a construction method where I can kind of turn it into something physical, like functional, like the double-front garments,” said Fagerstrom, adding that she likes to get technical and break the rules of construction.
The designer said she is keen to stay in London after graduation and focus on building her brand.
Palmer had a lot of experience with products before landing a place at CSM. He was hired by Dover Street Market to produce collections for Gosha Rubchinskiy and later oversaw the product development of brands under the Dover Street Market Paris umbrella, such as Vaquera, Olly Shinder and ERL.
He was one of the very few who showed clothes that could be immediately sold on a shop floor, including an oversize duffle coat, a check shirt and a trenchcoat.
It was a fun collection, too. “I took the tongue-in-cheek attitude of lad culture, subverting it through funny fabrics, like the tea towels, and the teacup hats. I use humor a lot also. I drew parallels between adolescence and adulthood, and I looked at the wedgie and how kids assert dominance through stuff like that. I’m trying to make a more playful, carefree type of guy. The world would be better for everyone,” Palmer added.
Other standouts in the show included Jake Zhang’s layered, sporty, body-con men’s looks with pronounced shoulders and torsos via padding; Yaoyao Huang’s psychedelic, patterned knits; Thatton Ulysse Phinyophummin’s colorful and DIY take on the look of an adolescent; Kelechi Mpamaugo’s proud take on West African heritage and athleticism in Black American style; Scar Kennedy’s dress made with upcycled office telephone cords, and Jacek Gleba’s light, fluid men’s looks made with natural materials like bamboo, wool and silk.
Course leader Fabio Piras, who is celebrating his 10th anniversary at the fashion school this year, said students this year collectively responded to “a world that is absolutely shambolic horrific.”
“There was a lot of romantic attitudes about a completely disastrous situation. It’s very difficult to be positive and create, but creativity makes you positive by default because that’s the most positive thing you can do. Without art and creative people, there would be nothing else, because culture is completely under the drain,” he said.
“What we’re trying to show is some moments of stupidity, lightheartedness and absolute beauty. That’s what we do. That’s the only thing we’re good at, and that’s the only thing we can do,” added Piras, who has taught a new generation of fashion talents including Charles Jeffrey, Nensi Dojaka, Kiko Kostadinov and Paolo Carzana.
