Runway dream
Four Chinese students from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design have brought their works to New York FashionWeek in the hope of realizing their dreams of becoming world-renowned designers. China Daily reports.
Four Chinese students from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design bring their creations to New York Fashion Week.
Fashion icons Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Zac Posen have one thing in common. They graduated from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. Now four of the school’s Chinese students have brought their works to New York in the hope of realizing their dreams of becoming worldfamous designers.
CSM fashion design womenswear undergraduate students — Wang Qing, Hu Tianjia, Hu Yingqi and the recently accepted student Qi Sixian— staged a fashion show for about 200 guests at New York City’s Hotel Pennsylvania during this year’s New York Fashion Week, which ran from Feb 6 to 13.
The biannual event is held in February and September in Manhattan each year and showcases the latest collections of the fashion world. Started in 1943, New York Fashion Week, branded Mercedes-Benz FashionWeek in 2009, is one of the major fashion weeks worldwide, along with those in Paris, London and Milan.
“I am so lucky to be doing a show here,” says Wang Qing, a freshman at CSM. “A lot of my classmates are super talented but they don’t have such a chance.”
She says the students were able to present their works because of their design coach Wang Hao’s connections.
In past years Wang Hao has sent more than 10 of his students from his training school, Beijingbased Ying Sheng International Culture and Art Center, to New York Fashion Week. But it was the first time he has hosted a special show for his former students who got into CSM.
“I have always been wondering what I could do to help these designers in their careers,” says Wang Hao, also an active fashion designer.
“That’s why I started to organize fashion shows here to increase their visibility. I want to support them to become rising stars in the industry.”
Although the young women — all in their early 20s — were fortunate to showcase their creations along with the world’s top designers, their journey to the runway has not been a smooth one, they say.
WangQing, Hu Tianjia andHu Yingqi had already completed their bachelor’s degree in China before going to London.
They had to go through another round of undergraduate studies in London before they could begin to pursue designing with the masters at CSM.
“I thought CSM was too prestigious to want anything to do with me. And it usually only admits one or two Chinese students each year,” says Wang Qing. “But I tried anyway. Every day I worked from 10 am to 10 pm to prepare my portfolio. I did nothing but work, besides sleeping and eating.
“The moment I received the admission letter, I cried.”
London took some getting used to as well.
“I wasn’t used to the life there, nor the language. It was hard to keep up with school. The instructors don’t use textbooks, so we didn’t know where to start,” says Wang Qing, adding she is finally getting comfortable with school life.
“Studying in London has helped me find my own style and improve my ability to study independently, which you can’t really learn from schools in China,” says Hu Yingqi, a third-year student.
“Also, in China we were asked to learn from established works. In CSM, design is more about personal experiences. But I do need to think about commercial aspects once I graduate. Inschool you can create whatever you want. But in the real world you also need to think whether the market will like it.”
Looking forward, most of these young designers plan to develop their careers either in the United Kingdom or the United States before deciding whether or not to return to China.
“Probably the US,” says Hu Tianjia. Compared with London, she says there are more job opportunities in NewYork.
For Qi, where she will go next depends on where opportunity takes her. To study fashion design, she went to Shenzhen in Guangdong province for a pre-under graduate program run by a design school from London. But through weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, she found out about Wang Hao and headed north to Beijing to take a shot at CSM.
Now at the age of 20, Qi has already completed two shows in fashion week before going to CSM this fall. She has also been doing a variety of gigs on the side, including selling cars, to gain more exposure.