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Graduating students from a range of fashion courses at Solent University recently had the opportunity to showcase their final major projects in a digital portfolio to industry professionals.

23rd September 2020
Fashion

Graduating students from a range of fashion courses at Solent University recently had the opportunity to showcase their final major projects in a digital portfolio to industry professionals including photographers, stylists, PR’s, designers and other industry creatives.

The portfolio featured at this year’s Graduate Fashion Week, a five day event at Coal Drop Yard in London. The event began with showrooms of student’s designs open to the public, and Monday 21 September saw the 'Digital Portfolio Viewing Day' when industry were invited to view portfolios. Solent’s digital portfolio showcased work from courses - BA (Hons) Fashion Design, BA (Hons) Fashion Media, BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Creative Direction and BA (Hons) Makeup and Hair Design.

As part of the event, a video and photo shoot took place to celebrate work from students across the universities involved. Solent University were thrilled to be selected to provide hair and make-up artistry for the video, with six students from BA (Hons) Make-up and Hair Design (Annistasia Chandler, Sadie Hughes, Oonagh Bottalico, Freya Paxton, Katie Weldon and Kiera O’Brien) having the fantastic opportunity to work with Graduate Fashion Week and Duck Productions (supplied by the British Fashion Council) on the project.

The video also features outfits from BA (Hons) Fashion Design student Katie Harrison’s final collection. The collection called 'The Multi-Faceted Individual' is based on the idea that we are all complex individuals with many different aspects to our personality. It is a gender neutral, street wear style collection.

Annistasia Chandler who worked on the video said “Working on the GFW video was a completely new experience under Covid restrictions. Each hair and make-up artist became a chaperone for their model to reduce the amount of contact between people. This meant along with doing the hair and make-up, we were also helping dress them and escort them to each location of the shoot. Although it was completely different to what I’m used to, and hot at times under all the PPE I really enjoyed the consistency of working with one model throughout the day. It allowed me to keep the hair and make-up consistent from call time to end which can sometimes be difficult with many hands on a face.”

Student Sadie Hughes added “All members of staff were a pleasure to work with and as a team we were given a chance to be creative by collaborating with the Make-up Designer. Creating a Graphic Liner, is always challenging, however, I was really pleased with the symmetry and outcome.”

Katie Harrison's final collection that featured in the GFF video

Douglas MacLennan Acting Chair from Graduate Fashion Week provided excellent feedback on the students work, saying they were “incredibly professional” and the looks created were “aesthetically successful”.

Emma Calder, Course Leader for BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Creative Direction and BA (Hons) Fashion Photography said: “As a Graduate Fashion Foundation University and Colleges Trustee, I am so proud of our graduating students and the work that they have created during this unprecedented time. Their ingenuity, resilience, and creativity has surpassed expectations, and they have proved that they are more than ready for the next step into industry”.

Five make-up and hair design students (Alice Hoy, Hannah Gumbley, Hannah Robiquet, Sadie Hughes and Annistasia Chandler) also created the looks for the Graduate Fashion Catwalk Shows that featured this week at Coal Drop Yard in front of industry professionals for London Fashion Week.

One of the make-up looks created by BA (Hons) Make-up and Hair Design students
One of the make-up looks created by BA (Hons) Make-up and Hair Design students