Fashion school college students all over the world are getting ready to enter an business that is rapidly changing. There are programs to move, design prompts to ace, runway reveals to prep for {and professional} connections to make. In our collection, “Fashion School Diaries,” these college students give us a firsthand look into their day-to-day lives. Right here, we meet Benjamin Spencer, a 2022 Regent’s College London Trend Design and Advertising and marketing B.F.A. graduate.
In March of 2020, throughout his second yr at university in London, Riac Oseph was pressured to maneuver in along with his grandmother in India, the remainder of his household caught in Kuwait, the place he’d grown up. On the similar time, a critical well being difficulty left Oseph briefly paralyzed. He saved considering how all he needed was a hug.
Oseph is a current Regent’s College London graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Trend Design (Advertising and marketing). His last assortment examines the reminiscence of a hug: lacking a hug, what a hug seems like, and the feelings related to it. Oseph started by asking his Twitter and Instagram followers what a hug meant and what feelings it provoked, compiling and pulling from everybody’s (largely related) solutions. Thus, the gathering and its identify had been born: “Hugs (I Miss You).”
Oseph’s Moodboard
Picture: Courtesy of Riac Oseph
Aesthetically, Oseph’s analysis for the gathering started earlier than then. For the previous three years, he has been documenting and amassing photographs of immigrant uncles of their factor — again dwelling in Kuwait and past. The nuances of how Indian, Arab, and uncles of all ethnicities costume and adapt to new environment — professionally and socially — is a key theme. Oseph additionally referenced the works of latest artists, resembling Mumbai-born Ritika Pandey. Finally, he was awarded his college’s Trend Business Award for the gathering’s cohesion and wearability.
The lookbook was shot by Scott Bowlby, a Central Saint Martins MA Trend Picture pupil, within the idyllic seaside city of Brighton, England on a wet summer time day. Bowlby’s photographs evoke a way of nostalgia and heat, whereas emphasizing a up to date twist on what menswear is and could be. On this context, the clothes illustrates how the times of emotional unavailability inside poisonous masculinity are now not the societal and cultural norms.
After presenting his assortment, Oseph took a while to replicate on his experiences finding out trend and placing this assortment collectively, in addition to what he’d love to do subsequent.
Picture: Scott Bowlby/Courtesy of Riac Oseph
“I am from India however I used to be born and raised in Kuwait. Rising up, I used to be conscious of the artwork and trend worlds, however they felt distant — like a totally totally different universe. My mother and father had been all the time very encouraging of us broadening our horizons although, so that they enrolled us in all the things from drawing to breakdancing. It is arduous to pinpoint precisely how I crossed over to trend however I used to zone out in school sketching garments on my textbooks from way back to fifth grade.
“My fondness for trend grew deeper in my teenagers once I found Polyvore and the net trend group. Splicing and collaging these clothes collectively and sharing them with folks made the beforehand alien world appear extra inside attain. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than I pulled the brakes on my stereotypical Indian software program engineer path and set a path to London.
“Regent’s College was nice. That studio is and eternally might be one in every of my favourite locations on earth. The studio setting there’s like no different. Trend could be intense, however we laughed our approach by way of the ups and downs each single day. Being within the coronary heart of Regent’s Park meant we had probably the most therapeutic environment to flee into. My classmates Gracey, Khudija and I might frolic within the grass like little children to shake the stress off recurrently.
Picture: Scott Bowlby/Courtesy of Riac Oseph
“I selected Regents College as a result of they supplied a advertising pathway within the Design program, which I actually needed to do. I’ve grown a lot as a inventive particular person because of being there, primarily due to the depth of exploration and breadth of experimentation I used to be in a position to do on the course. Having to assume not solely from a designer’s perspective, however from a photographer, marketer, and illustrator’s perspective concurrently unlocked a stage of understanding inside myself I did not have earlier than.
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“The gathering known as ‘Hugs (I Miss You)’. It is best described as a meditation on the eager for a hug. I are inclined to lean into my artwork as a instrument to untangle my psyche, utilizing it to know what’s bothering me and, extra importantly, why it is bothering me. This assortment stems from a selected second of vulnerability over the pandemic once I fell sick with erythroderma, a uncommon pores and skin situation. I used to be caught in India right now, and my household, who had been in Kuwait, couldn’t fly to me as a result of lockdowns. Wanting the consolation of a hug so dangerous, however not with the ability to get it was such an fascinating place to be in — a sense so easy, but so complicated.
Oseph’s Moodboard
Picture: Courtesy of Riac Oseph
“For this assortment, I made a decision to hone in on that feeling, unpack it and, to some extent, make peace with it. I began by speaking to folks, each in particular person and on Twitter, about what a hug meant to them and the feelings it sparked, in addition to what a reminiscence felt like. Learning the similarities within the responses knowledgeable the curation of my ‘analysis galleries’ — a financial institution of photographic references that helped me visualize the sensation I used to be making an attempt to crack into.
“The analysis gallery was cut up into two components, the hugs gallery largely consisting of pictures of individuals in various types of embrace, from parental to pleasant to sexual. The reminiscence gallery consisted of surrealist collages from artists like Rithika Pandey and Bharat Sikka, an summary illustration of that jumbled, distorted nature of a reminiscence.
“Jumbling the previous within the model of the latter, then embedding factors of stress between the our bodies into the clothes utilizing anti-fit slicing methods shaped the premise of the gathering. The distortion is extra obvious in some items, just like the T-shirt that seems like a hug when worn or the outsized shirts whose sculptural kinds could be adjusted to the wearer’s liking. In different items, the kurtas and leather-based bomber jacket, the distortion is extra delicate — affecting the best way the clothes really feel, greater than the best way they appear.
Picture: Scott Bowlby/Courtesy of Riac Oseph
“The materials are all impressed by my ongoing ‘Unclecore’ photograph challenge—a meditation on the nuances of immigrant uncle dressing, zoning in on how their conventional dressing sensibilities seep into the best way they put issues collectively of their new environments. Checks and stripes in merino wools and cotton shirtings intensify the distortion within the garments the identical approach they wrap round an Indian uncle’s stomach.
“The gathering was awarded the Regents College Trend Business Award for ‘demonstrating sensitivity, up to date imaginative and prescient, and design cohesion applicable for the ready-to-wear market.’ This was judged by trend purchaser Angela Quaintrell, author Jessica Bumpus and stylist Rebekah Roy.
“I positively need to get some business expertise in a design capability. However in the long run, it might be good to have a studio observe of my very own. I take pleasure in designing greater than something on this planet however I don’t need to be pressured to do a set each six months for the sake of operating a enterprise. It would be good to have a observe that is broad sufficient to assist itself by way of various mediums so that every challenge that is launched is one with substance. I additionally simply need the area to fiddle and create with my buddies, and get us all paid!”
Picture: Scott Bowlby/Courtesy of Riac Oseph
Extra lookbook credit:
Stylist: Beverly Corpuz
Motion Course: Sosa Edo
Casting: Jordane Wheatley
Fashions: Caleb Frempong, Gai Manyok, Keon Hee Lee from Fashions 1
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