Untold Season VII

I came across Untold during the summer at Clothes Show London and I was pretty impressed with the work from the designers. Untold Design is a community interest company and social enterprise which offers new and emerging creatives who specialise in various aspects of design a space to show their work. Untold pay a lot of lip service in collaboration and collective showcasing where all the designers work together which brings down the cost aimed at the creatives. The Untold story began in 2007 with just three designers and now three years later the collective has seen over 300 designers and creatives go through their doors. On Monday all doors led to The Design Museum where Untold Season VII took place in conjunction with The London Design Festival and London Fashion Week. There was a pop-up boutique on the old routemaster double decker bus parked outside of the venue where you could buy special editions of prints by Victoria Scott as well as a variety of illustrations. On the top deck there were collections by Eki Orleans and Zanaib Vandu-Chikolo. The designers showing off their collections on the runway were Tijana & Mila Popovic, Ross Paul Keenan, Jasmine Howard-Evans, Eki Orleans, Ricardo Ramos and Karla Sabina.

The idea behind the Tijana & Mila Popovic collection is to unite ethics and aesthetics drawing from new age elements and fashion, graphics and interiors. This was a gorgeous collection with chiffony dresses, leotards and lots of PVC. Despite having being trained on Saville Row Ross Paul Keenan wanted to rebel against this and as a result his collection was based on the concept of football and the Brixton riots. Ricardo Ramos's collection was based on his inspiration of India hence the use of saris, cottons, Madras checks and diplomat stripes. This was quite a dusky collection with flashes of vibrant colours on dresses and pantsuits.

Eki Orleans brilliantly uses West African prints on silk materials and turns them into smock tops, floaty maxi and shift dresses. I loved this collection and it was refreshing to see the prints used on silk as opposed to other materials. With the use of two dimensional and three dimensional design, Jasmine Howard-Evans creates her collections with a holistic approach, creating prints and pieces that interact together. I thought this collection was fabulous and I really liked the way the models were sent down the catwalk with a tiny camera where they pretended to take pictures of the audience and the photographers. Very cute. Karla Sabina's collection consists of handbags and jewelley which tells a story of sensibility, experience and maturity of someone who has learned to trust her senses. The necklaces were very elegant and the tiny shoulder bags were tres chic. Untold created a fantastic evening with a wonderful celebration of fashion and it is great to see so much talent in this country. The evening was topped off with a serving of tea and cupcakes. Well what else?

You can find out more about Untold by visiting their website.

Pics are supplied by Untold. Middle pic is of the collection by Tijana and Mila Popovic, the bottom pic is of Jasmine Howard-Evans.