Being a student on BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration at London College of Fashion is an exciting place to be! This dynamic course combines the artistry of illustration with the ever-evolving world of fashion, allowing our students to become expert visual storytellers.
Renowned for its forward-thinking and multidisciplinary approach, our students not only develop traditional illustration skills, but can also explore animation, art direction, curation, and moving image as a vehicle to bring their ideas to life.
Equipped with an extremely diverse creative toolkit, our graduates have gone on to collaborate with high-profile brands such as Gucci, Paul Smith, Vogue and Wonderland. Take alumni, Tom Hemingway, for example. After graduating from the course, he collaborated with fashion illustration brand SHOWstudio, an award-winning online platform that pushes the boundaries of communicating fashion online. From a young age, Tom’s passion for image-making was evident and stretched beyond the traditional forms of illustration to include photography and traditional painting.
Since it was founded, SHOWstudio has collaborated with high-profile filmmakers, writers, and cultural figures to create engaging online content that explores fashion through moving image, illustration, photography, and the written word. Collaborators have included influential fashion figures and brands such as Kate Moss, Comme des Garcons and Alexander McQueen.
I am inspired by different forms of image-making, not necessarily just illustrators but also photographers and traditional painters. My primary focus as an illustrator is to propose a succinct visual narrative, that explores a more stark and emotional approach to beauty.
Therefore I tend to gravitate towards artists with a similar desire, such as the photography of Sarah Moon or Nick Knight, the illustrations of Richard Gray or the paintings of HR Giger and Jan Van Eyck.
I chose BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration as I always placed my artistic practice somewhere between the two during my college studies. I had developed an interest in graphite illustration and enjoyed the sense of realism that I could portray with it while maintaining a sense of otherworldliness.
I decided that studying in London would enrich me culturally, as well as academically, and that BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration had an interesting position within the fashion media school, that felt quite traditional and exciting.
The course allowed me to work with different practices such as animation and darkroom printing, and I was encouraged to develop my visual language through independent study and research. I think that the course is unique, as it explores the idea of fashion as an art form and vice versa, and I don’t believe many art or fashion colleges offer this kind of creative exploration.
SHOWstudio is an online platform was first launched by the fashion image-maker Nick Knight in 2000. Initially, the site aimed to showcase innovations in “fashion film” and soon became one of the most prominent media outlets in the fashion industry.
Nick Knight and Bex Cassie at SHOWstudio pioneered the relevancy of fashion illustrators within the industry by inviting artists to depict the latest season’s collections through their illustrations.
In February 2023, I was invited to illustrate in response to London Fashion Week AW’23 live from SHOWstudio’s Belgravia residence, which was also to be live streamed over the three days.
The opportunity was fundamental in developing as an illustrator by allowing me to work outside the usual parameters of my practice and push myself to create something new. I was then invited to illustrate live on-set for the filming of Daphne Guinness’ music video “Hip Neck Spine” alongside 12 other SHOWstudio illustrators, depicting Daphne’s couture archive over several days. Together we have a group show titled “Drawing Daphne” open to the public until September 2023.
My time studying at UAL allowed me to find my artistic identity and interests, which are obviously crucial to creating the work I do today. SHOWstudio champion unique artistic identities and have encouraged me to explore my own in ways that I wouldn’t have dreamt of before!
I believe that dissecting my practice whilst studying and as a postgraduate, whether it be writing my dissertation on my artistic influences or researching for my latest illustration project, has allowed me to articulate my artistic practice to new audiences more succinctly and gain a better understanding of my creative aims.
You can find out more about Tom and some of his work with SHOWstudio in this recent sit-down interview with SHOWstudio’s Christina Donoghue here.
Students on the BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration course can go onto a range of different roles such as a illustrator, designer, stylist, graphic designer and more! We caught up with Fashion Imaging and Illustration graduate, Gisela, who tell us about the course and brand Inky Narratives.