How Difficult Is Design In Central Saint Martin?

From a distance, the red Bauhaus style architecture in the central Saint Martin Institute of art and design is flat. It is about 5 minutes' walk from King's Cross, the main railway station in London, and is a shallow Regent River before the building. The shore of the river was originally a fish market and a fruit and vegetable market, but it was rebuilt in 2011 and became the new campus of central Saint Martin.

If John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Christopher Kane and James Dyson look for an intersection with fashion designers and industrial designers who span the fashion and electrical industry for nearly 30 years, they will graduate from central Saint Martin. The earliest history of the design school can be traced back to 1854. It has many specialties including women's wear, men's wear, printing, knitting, fabrics and so on. It is one of the most famous design institutes in the world, together with the Parsons School of design, Royal College of Art, Antwerp, Belgium and ESMOD, France. Throughout the twentieth Century, quite a few of the figures who promoted the design of Europe and even the global stage, industrial design and costume design were connected with central Saint Martin.

Central Saint Martin is not an accident. As early as eighteenth Century, London was already the most developed city in Europe. By nineteenth Century, Savile Row in central London had gradually become the tailoring street for gentlemen dressed in tailored suits and gathered the most excellent tailors and designers in Europe.

Although the outbreak of World War II brought the whole European fashion industry to a standstill, but in the 10 years from 1947 to 1957 after the end of World War II, the advanced custom fashion in London once again witnessed a period of vigorous development - new wealth was created in large numbers, and the demand for fashion again emerged. French designer Christian Dior called the 10 years the "golden years" of the fashion industry in Paris and London. The fashionable style of fashion also evolved from the simplicity of war to orthodox and elegant.

But at that time, the British community was also full of objections to the fashion industry. "During the war, the people were not satisfied with their meals, and when they saw that fashion designers used so many gorgeous fabrics to make their dresses, they criticized them as crimes." Mark Jones, former curator of the National Museum of Vitoria and Albert (V&A Museum), said in an interview.

But the voice of these doubts is fleeting, and the fashion style of London is more diversified than that of Paris. Rocking girls in 1960s and punks in 1970s started a new fashion in London.

Because of its popularity, this school has become a dream for many young people around the world to become a designer. Peng Linjing, one of the girls in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, is one of them.

Becoming a fashion designer was Peng Linjing's dream since elementary school, but really finding the end of her career was after she liked Alexander McQueen, who graduated from central Saint Martin in 1994. Peng Linjing decided to follow his footsteps. In 2012, after graduating from high school in China, Peng Linjing was successfully accepted by central Saint Martin and became a student of women's clothing major in the design school.

The diversity and cultural enrichment of the London race also gave the city a lot of inspiration for fashion students. In early August, Peng Linjing completed her latest 2014 spring summer series, which is also the last major course of her sophomore year, inspired by a traditional Hindu tradition.

In central Saint Martin's women's clothing major, "project" is the most important form of curriculum. Students need to complete a series of designs according to the subjects specified by the teacher. Each school year is divided into 3 semesters. Each semester has 3 small items and 1 large projects. Small projects usually need to draw only sketches, but large projects need to make complete ready-made garments.

Different from the past, teachers will give a detailed explanation of the theme given. This time, Peng Linjing and her classmates only received an A4 paper, which wrote a word "Celebration (Qing Zhu)". Besides that, there was no more information. All the students were confused when they got their hands.

Finally Peng Linjing set the direction in "Color Festival (holi day)". This festival was originally a traditional Hindu festival, but with the large number of descendants of India entering Britain to settle down, Color Festival was also turned into a Carnival without religious implication by the British. Every August, Wembley Park in London will host Color Festival. People who buy tickets can wear their old clothes and throw coloured powder on other people.

Inspired by the inspiration of Color Festival, Peng Linjing designed a series of women's clothing which is mainly composed of white, mint green and other light colors. She plans to wait for the whole series to finish, invite the model to put on the new design, then sprinkle the pigment to the model body, after the pigment scatters, the cloth material quality will have the different color effect.

In August, it was summer vacation, so Peng Linjing arranged all the processes of plate cutting, cutting and sewing in her own room -- her workbench and sewing machine in her room. But during the weekdays, these jobs were mainly carried out in the women's clothing studio of central Saint Martin. Saint Martin's design studio is mostly on the top floor of the teaching building, and the ceiling is designed as a sloping glass top. If you have seen the Lagerfeld Confidential documentary, you will find that Chanel's studio is designed like this. The reason why designers like to use such roof is that the color of cloth can be correctly identified under natural light. If the sunlight is too harsh, a white cord will also be properly blocked.

The completion of garment production is the last step of design, but Peng Linjing spent more time in making Sketchbook. The so-called sketch book has about a thickness of the modern Chinese dictionary, which details the data collection, source of inspiration, design and modification process of each manuscript before designer's design.

"Saint Martin's teaching attaches great importance to Sketchbook, through continuous Sketchbook, let us form our own design thinking, develop a habit of thinking." Peng Linjing said to the first financial weekly.

Not all first-rate design institutes attach much importance to sketches, but the teaching method of women's clothing majors at another famous school of design, Parsons School of design is completely different. When Peng Linjing was still in his freshman year, a group of exchange students from Parsons came to school. The students were not very good at designing sketches.

"When they came up, they took a picture of the cloth on the model. In fact, it represented the design idea of the United States, which was more concerned about the effect of the clothes on the stage. There were not many conceptual things, just like the fashion brands in the United States. Peng Linjing said.

Looking at all the fashion resources in London, you will find that central Saint Martin is just one part of the whole fashion education, and the students' learning and opportunities are more outside the school. London has large and small museums, hairdressing schools, developed model brokers and all kinds of buyer shops.

For Peng Linjing, the museum she visited most often was the V&A Museum, the most recommended by the teacher, for inspiration. In order to design a complete set of clothing, besides the clothing itself, it needs to match the appropriate hairstyle and makeup. During a stroll around Hyde Park, Peng Linjing accidentally picked up a student from VS hairdressing college in London, who later became Peng Linjing's regular hairpin partner.

In addition, there are plenty of companies willing to help young designers in the UK. The fashion business Lyst wrote a theme for the new designer brand in London Fashion Week in September, and opened up a retail area for them. In central Saint Martin's library, there is also a corner for special display of cloth and material samples. If students send mail to the companies using school mailboxes, sometimes they can get more samples provided by these cloth companies.

Because of this, many young designers, whether they graduated from central Saint Martin or not, have chosen to launch their careers in London, and so will Peng Linjing. But to be a successful fashion designer is not just a successful tailor, but Peng Linjingjin really understood it for a year. In 2013, Peng Linjing worked as an independent designer in Korea, and learned many things that Saint Martin could not teach her.

Before launching a series, the Korean designer had to consider carefully what material to choose, how high the cost, how much the production of medium and small size, how much the budget was, and so on. These financial details were Peng Linjing's little contact before. When the new series is completed, the designer also needs to turn his identity into an excellent sales person, dragging his sample clothes to a buyer's shop to promote his own design. In addition, we need to organize more than 100 mailboxes of fashion magazines and fashion website editors, and regularly issue new product catalogues for them to get the opportunity to report.

"A lot of things I thought before were very simple, but now I know that there are many talented and talented designers, but some people appreciate you more importantly, not as easy as I thought." Peng Linjing said.

These difficulties are also what central Saint Martin wants his students to know. As Saint Martin's late master's supervisor, Louise Willson, said, "I've never met a designer who graduated from Saint Martin. They came to Saint Martin to study for the purpose of creating their own brand. A truly gifted person is always modest or prudent or lacks confidence. "