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Every February, young designers on the MA course at Central St. Martins in London burst onto the fashion scene in a spectacular show. At the end of the evening, one of the graduates receives a prize of £1,500 donated by Harrods, the department store (US$ 2,760). More valuable still, the winner’s designs go on display in Harrods’ front window.
The Central St. Martins’ show, which comes at the end of London Fashion Week, is a recognized fixture in the international fashion calendar; an opportunity for scouts from leading fashion houses to get the measure of debutante designers and for the press to announce the next big names to the public. Two-thousand-six was, by all accounts, a vintage year.
Taking almost as keen an interest as the talent spotters was L’Oréal Professionnel, the trade arm of L’Oréal that sells hair-care products to salons. L’Oréal’s focus was one Molly Grad, a young designer to watch, whose undergraduate collection scooped a L’Oréal-sponsored award, five years ago, at Central St. Martins’ BA show. This time round, Grad missed out to a classmate. The prize went instead to Christopher Kane, whom Harrods has since commissioned for an exclusive range of sunglasses.
Brands that trade on style collaborate with fashion colleges and young designers all the time. What is striking about L’Oréal Professionnel’s approach is the lengths it goes to encourage and nurture young talent. When Grad returned to Central St. Martins, after a three-year spell with Stella McCartney, L’Oréal Professionnel provided sponsorship. Grad has also designed for the company and seen her work go on tour with the L’Oréal Colour Trophy, a nationwide competition aimed at discovering “the next big thing” in hair. This spring, her MA collection was exhibited at the grand finale of the Colour Trophy.
L’Oréal’s hope is that Grad will one day be as famous as John Galliano, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, all graduates of Central St. Martins. But the company’s interest in discovering new designers isn’t just about spotting tomorrow’s stars. It’s more strategic than that.
By collaborating with Central St. Martins, L’Oréal Professionnel hopes to make its glossy image more lustrous and steal a march on rivals Wella and Schwarzkopf. “People who want to be associated with us, do so because they want to be associated with fashion and because they see us as a premium brand,” says communications director Naomi Scroggins. “We are now seeing [salon owners] coming to us from our competitors because of our fashion links.”
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Behind the scenes, L’Oréal Professionnel plays the part of a matchmaker, marrying designers on the verge of celebrity with up-and-coming stylists. Every year the brand takes a group of stylists from what it calls its “Portfolio of Artistic Hairdressers,” to style the models taking part in Central St. Martins’ BA show. If all goes to plan, some of the designers and hairdressers will forge long-term partnerships and L’Oréal will be rewarded for its efforts, as its fashion protégés and trade customers become famous together. “It’s about exposing young stylists to designers and young designers to young stylists,” explains Scroggins. “It’s a long-term thing, and we probably won’t see all the benefits for another 10 years.”
L’Oréal Professionnel comes with fashion credibility, thanks in part to the association of the consumer brand with celebrities and film stars, such as Jennifer Aniston. But promoting emergent talent can also help famous brands, burdened by a heritage that has become a handicap, appeal to a younger, more contemporary audience. Harrods’ sponsorship of the MA show at Central St. Martins is a case in point.
Identified with classic style rather than hot fashion, Harrods needs to reach out to younger trendsetters if it is to be a destination store for up-to-the-minute consumers. In recognition of this, the store recently opened a “Designer Studio,” with a focus on fashion experimentation and encouraging “edgy young fashion talent.” The collaboration with Central St. Martins plays into this strategy and makes its ambition to be hip look more credible.
At a less-exalted level, the classic British tire company Dunlop Tyres, and its design consultants Fitch, commissioned second year undergraduates at the London College of Fashion to design a motorsport-inspired “ready to wear” collection to signal the brand’s rebirth and put Dunlop on the map of young urban drivers.
Fitch’s design director, Simon Moriarty, explains why it makes sense for Dunlop—which lacks a track record in fashion—to work with undergraduate designers. “To suddenly drop Dunlop into London Fashion Week wouldn’t be believable. You have to build believability into the brand at grass-roots level rather than associating it with a leading designer from day one,” he says.
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Championing designers before they leave the classroom exposes brands to the risk of disappointment—and the possibility of stumbling on something new and completely original. Melody Harris-Jensbach is head of design at lifestyle brand Esprit, which commissioned a capsule collection, this spring, from second-year students at the London College of Fashion. She explains that an absence of commercial experience can be both a liability and an asset: “The minds of young designers aren’t jaded with the responsibility of sales. That makes them free to experiment and create.”
This belief in taking a grassroots approach to innovation is shared by skincare brand Crabtree & Evelyn. A US-owned company that, nevertheless, cultivates a quintessentially “English” brand identity, Crabtree & Evelyn recently commissioned students from Central St. Martins to choose the graphics for a youthful, contemporary fragrance, which will go on sale in December. It’s partly about getting ideas from the base that we are marketing to,” explains marketing director Karen Hendry. “The things that they come up with have to do with their age, where they are coming from, what books they are reading and what movies they are seeing.”
While some brands work in partnership with college authorities and act as mentors to the students, others see students simply as a resource for getting ideas on the cheap. As a strategy, this approach is as self-defeating as it is self-servicing, since it forgets that students, however promising, have their limitations.
Scroggins who has used Central St. Martins for numerous projects—such as trend-spotting, designing look-books for salons and gift-with-purchase ideas—gives an example of how her company has lent a helping hand to its student collaborators. “Some of the collections that the students produced for us in the past weren’t fantastic, because they didn’t have the [tailoring] skills to finish the clothes to a high standard. Now when we commission students we employ seamstresses to make their designs up professionally.”
Brands that work with immature talent set sail on a voyage that could end up somewhere wonderful—or nowhere at all. The wise ones are those that commit generously to the venture, but accept the risk of returning home empty-handed. If they should happen to cross paths with a new Galliano or McQueen, then that’s just a bonus.
[26-Jun-2006]
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Alicia Clegg is a freelance journalist and writer based in the UK.
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Jul 31, 2006
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Building Appeal -- Randall Frost
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Part art, part science, the field of branding architecture has never been more relevant to firms around the world.
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Mar 13, 2006
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Standards: Who Needs Them? -- Edwin Colyer
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By setting standards, organizations like ISO, EFQM, and Eco-label create a mark of distinction for brands to promote. But rules differ greatly between the groups on who gets to use the mark and how.
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