New Frontiers

Viewing work from students of Fashion, Architecture and Painting, has allowed me to see a number of things from this year’s graduating class. Like so many of us during this time the students have had to pivot, in the ways in which they work and in how and what they were creating.

I was enchanted by Jukka who has made the streets of London his new studio and by Lydia who adapted her painting of self-portraits to create the most detailed and unique pieces of embroidery. Translating the closure of her time in isolation from brush stroke to embroidery and thereby expanding the lexicon of her visual language. The fashion collections are a mix of a new frontier of luxury leather goods next to beautifully cut denim which challenges our preconceived notions of clothing. I loved that in one collection I could see inspiration from Helmut Lang. This was a totally new interpretation and something I think Helmut Lang would like to have made himself. Sissel’s work highlights one of the most important messages of our time about breaking down barriers and of breaking down sexuality. The work makes us think about gender confines and the emancipation from this. This is a new language and a new way of looking at the very form of the body. “I am not only me, I am THEM”. A statement that echoes and resonates across and through everything on so many levels right now.

This generation of RCA students is embracing creativity to show things to the world as we have never seen them before.

Edward Enninful

Donghun Han's Where are you from? _Hugo

Isabel De La Roche's Belted Panniers

Samuel Jamieson's The Space to Which We Turn

Adalberto Lonardi's The Arcadian Gardens: the Stables

Twin Poles on Yellow — 280cm x 380cm Spray paint, pigment, acrylic paint & debris from the studio on canvas 2020

Jukka Virkkunen's Twin Poles on Yellow

Marcela Baltarete's MARCEL/A - A journey of digital introspection and relief - Part I (Still)

Sissel Karneskog's I AM THEM

Lydia Pettit's Trouble In The House

Folasade Okunribido's Ààfin Awon Aniyan – The People’s Palace

Shawn Adams' Canopy - Disruptions in the ground

Ellie Dragone's Not Your Baby

Edward Enninful

Edward Enninful took over as Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue in August 2017.

Prior to that Edward was Creative and Fashion Director of the American magazine W since 2011, where he worked with the world's best fashion photographers to produce ground-breaking, highly admired work. His experience as a fashion editor dates back to 1991 when he was named Fashion Director of the avant-garde British title i-D at the age of 19, a position he held for more than 20 years. In the years between 1998 and 2011 he contributed extensively to American Vogue and Italian Vogue.

Born in Ghana 45 years ago, one of six children, Enninful was brought to London as a child and grew up in the city's Ladbroke Grove area. He became interested in fashion as a teenager when he was scouted as a fashion model. He displayed a talent for fashion styling which led the then Editor of i-D, Terry Jones, to appoint Enninful as the magazine's fashion director, the youngest in the industry. He attended Goldsmith's, University of London, well known for its art programmes, but left before graduation in order to plunge full-time into a fashion editing career.

In 2014 he was named fashion creator of the year by the British Fashion Council, he was honored with an OBE in 2016, and in 2018 he was awarded the Media Award by the Council of Fashion Designers America and the PPA Chairman’s Award for his remarkable career in the industry. In 2019, Enninful was honored by The Daily Front Row for Magazine of the Year at the Fashion Media Awards.

Curator Biography