Flaminia Saccucci Graduate Collection | Source: Flaminia Saccucci

LONDON, United Kingdom — This month, we shine the BoF Spotlight on print designer Flaminia Saccucci, whose symphony of printed latex garments — inspired by the sexiness of rubber, the masculinity of tyres and the feminine fragility of wild flowers — snagged her the L’Oréal Professional Young Talent Award for the best student collection at the Central Saint Martins BA graduate show a few weeks back.

Speaking with BoF, the young Italian described her aesthetic as “sharp, clean, but with a twist, and always balanced,” something which was particularly evident in the way her breakthrough collection harmoniously blended synthetic materials with natural florals.

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Huishan Zhang A/W RTW 2011 | Source: Huishan Zhang

LONDON, United Kingdom — One of the greatest aspects of teaching at Central Saint Martins (apart from walking its hallowed halls) is having a first look at the strong talent that the College manages to attract from around the world, and then witnessing (often with amazement!) how that talent develops over time. The strongest students take advantage of all that CSM has to offer, and in the process, discover their own design voice and signature.

One such example is the talented, Chinese-born Huishan Zhang, who attended one of my very first lectures at CSM a few years back and graduated with a BA in Fashion Design & Marketing in 2010. Since then, Huishan has been proactive about keeping in touch as he made decisions about both the business and design direction he wished to take with his own brand. He is a young designer who listens to the advice offered to him by an informal group of well-connected mentors who he has personally sought out to advise him. Listening is a skill sorely lacking in many young designers, who years later often say, “I wish I had listened…”

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Tze Goh detail | Source: Tze Goh

LONDON, United Kingdom — This month, the BoF Spotlight turns to Singapore-born, London-based designer Tze Goh, whom we first came across during London Fashion Week at Vauxhall Fashion Scout’s ‘Ones to Watch.’ show. In fashion, designers often combine multiple points of reference in a single collection to give their clothes a more novel and appealing context. But Goh takes a more tightly focused approach to his work.

“I don’t really understand why there are so many themes in a collection; there’s no real reason for that,” said Goh, who trained at the Parsons New School of Design in New York and Paris, before completing his MA at Central Saint Martins in London. “For me, fashion is all about changing the silhouette of a person.”

To achieve his minimal, shape-shifting vision, Goh purposefully restricts his conceptual inputs. “I typically have one or two ideas and I work within those boundaries to make sure that the result is focused,” said Goh.

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Christophe Decarnin | Source: Homme a la Mode

Balmain Exit (Vogue UK)
“Christophe Decarnin is leaving Balmain after spending five years as creative director. A successor has not yet been appointed…. Decarnin joined the French fashion house in 2005 as a designer before being made the creative director in November 2007. He is largely credited for introducing the rock and military-inspired look… that the label is currently known for.”

Reviving the Russian luxury market (Reuters)
“Russia’s luxury market may be worth only half of what it was pre-financial crisis, but its thirst for excess is making somewhat of a comeback, though uncertainty over its ability to grow lingers. ‘Slowly, slowly, people are starting to live again,’ said Alla Verber, Russian clothing mogul and head of fashion at plush designer store TSUM, Moscow’s answer to Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Boom time for boutiques in Australia (The Australian)
“Burberry’s flagship store in Sydney’s CBD has marked a trend…for bigger, more lavish and, of course, more expensive boutiques in the booming top end of the retail market. … ‘Our new Sydney store is the most ambitious and expensive boutique we have ever opened,’ TAG Heuer chief executive Jean-Christophe Babin said. ‘After just two months of operation, it was already our No 1 store in the world.’”

Twitter to offer brands Facebook-style pages (Marketing Magazine)
“Branded pages, through which advertisers could deliver tailored messages, are under consideration, along with other plans to increase the long-term revenue potential of the social network… The pages would work in a similar way to Facebook Pages, providing brands with their own space to deliver content and encourage Twitter users to follow them.”

Dazed Live: Ruth Hogben (Dazed Digital)
“The pioneering London filmmaker Ruth Hogben is Director of Fashion Film at SHOWstudio and will be speaking at Dazed Live about her collaborations with Gareth Pugh and the resulting, inimitable visual style of her unique films. She has created iconic fashion films with Matthew Stone and Dazed’s own Katie Shillingford, not to mention her work with Nick Knight and Alexander McQueen.”

Quilya Necklace | Source: Maryam Keyhani

TORONTO, Canada — Artistry runs in Maryam Keyhani’s blood.

“There is nothing I can do but to make things with my hands,” she says. “But it is hard to make money from art,” a lesson she learned at the age of 13, going from gallery to gallery to help sell her father’s artwork shortly after she and her family moved to Canada from Tehran.

“I wasn’t doing  it for fun, it was for survival,” but there were many lessons learned, says the budding jewelery designer who studied sculpture and painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

“Selling his work has made me more assertive today. I am a creative person, but I am constantly thinking about the business side too.” It doesn’t hurt that her husband — my former McGill classmate, Ali Karbassi — has two business degrees and has been helping to get her business off the ground.

But even with all the business chops in the world, no upstart fashion business is going to take off without a great product, and it is here that Maryam really excels.

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