LFW A/W23 — The Future Collective X Fashion Scout

Words Léa Noël 

Show­cased in the heart of Shored­itch, the col­lab­o­ra­tion high­light­ed three emerg­ing design­ers’ A/W23 col­lec­tions. Here is a pre­view of each col­lec­tion as well as the design­ers’ exclu­sive insights.

FIGURA SERVICES

Found­ed in 2021 by a duo aim­ing at con­vey­ing the “dark allure of psy­che and the strength of con­tin­u­ous trans­for­ma­tion” through dis­turbed designs lead­ing towards dis­turb­ing feel­ings. The brand rests upon the belief of the emo­tions in the body we wear con­vey­ing the only truth we know.

“A lab­o­ra­to­ry of famil­iar objects in unfa­mil­iar contexts”

• 

• 

• 

The col­lec­tion show­cased dark and neu­tral-coloured gar­ments com­bined with flu­o­res­cent and eye-catch­ing accessories. 

• 

You can check Figu­ra Ser­vices’ lat­est col­lec­tions here.

FELIX BENDISH

Felix Bendish most­ly takes inspi­ra­tion from the com­bi­na­tion of Nature and Tex­tures, Art and Archi­tec­ture. Craft­man­ship has been cel­e­brat­ed through painstak­ing­ly hand­made and embroi­dered eccen­tric gar­ments, made in Mum­bai, India.

• 

• 

• 

The A/W col­lec­tion takes inspi­ra­tion from the ele­ment of fire:

“I have tak­en colours from the ther­mal forms as an inspi­ra­tion, then used the vivid colours in cre­at­ing a but­ter­fly” Felix Bendish, designer.

“I strong­ly believe that the brain ener­gy can be so pow­er­ful in cre­at­ing new pos­i­tive ideas” Bendish told us. All atten­dees have been offered a but­ter­fly brooch pri­or to the show. “My love for the but­ter­fly embroi­dery brooches was cre­at­ed first and the same con­cept was done onto dig­i­tal print­ing to cre­ate an illusion”.

The design­er chose Lon­don to show­case his A/W col­lec­tion with the upcom­ing project to get his brand out to as many stores in Lon­don and Europe. “My quirky style fits here. I want to move to a direc­tion in cre­at­ing street fash­ion rea­son­ably priced and worn by all fash­ion lovers”.

Speak­ing of fash­ion, one major prob­lem fac­ing the indus­try is the rise of fast fash­ion. Whilst eth­i­cal prac­tices are becom­ing a must in brands’ sup­ply chains and full trans­paren­cy towards con­sumers essen­tial – the move towards a more sus­tain­able con­sump­tion is not what the indus­try is mov­ing towards accord­ing to the artist: “I think fash­ion is rapid­ly mov­ing towards fast fashion”.

The col­lec­tion aims at pro­mot­ing bet­ter con­sump­tion: “Fash­ion is like art and must be treat­ed with smart buy­ing and val­ue. Reusing and mix­ing old to new gar­ments can also make a state­ment. One of my pieces in the cur­rent col­lec­tion had a fab­ric which was five years old. I just pleat­ed it and cre­at­ed a new line. It’s time for all design­ers to recy­cle old col­lec­tions too and gen­er­ate a new con­cept from old to gold”. 

You can check Felix Bendish’ lat­est col­lec­tions here.

GYOUREE KIM

Gyouree Kim ethics rests upon sus­tain­abil­i­ty and crafts­man­ship. The col­lec­tion takes inspi­ra­tion from con­tem­po­rary corsetry and has been show­cased dur­ing the designer’s first-ever cat­walk show.

The cat­walk start­ed off strong with a light and soft per­for­mance along­side clas­si­cal dra­mat­ic music align­ing with the collection’s sto­ry. The gen­tle body move­ments unveiled a long and soft draped skirt that end­ed up twist­ed on itself, align­ing with the model’s silhouette.

• 

• 

• 

The show then went on with the first mod­el walk­ing show­cas­ing the first look of the col­lec­tion. Feath­ers clipped in the hair, corset and puffed shape around the waist and sleeves area, a reminder of the Marie-Antoinette fash­ion era.

• 

• 

“The thing I’m always try­ing to show in my col­lec­tions is very detailed range of gar­ments, so it has a lot of lay­ers. It’s main­ly corsetry but also I don’t want it to be just corsets so I’m try­ing to make it “Ready-to-Wear” so peo­ple can still wear but it remains spe­cial and is occa­sion­al wear. The most impor­tant thing in fash­ion for me is the per­son wear­ing the gar­ment and that it brings hap­pi­ness to them”

Dis­cussing the sus­tain­abil­i­ty aspect of her col­lec­tion, Kim added: “anoth­er thing is how sus­tain­able the gar­ment is. The designs are made from recy­cled fab­rics or old fab­rics that have not been sold (dead stocks) so I want to con­tin­ue reusing old mate­ri­als and again craft detailed garments”.

Gyouree Kim is using a dif­fer­ent path to how fash­ion is lead­ing towards. While the indus­try invests a lot into tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal fash­ion, Kim believes in craft­man­ship: “Even if I’m doing the total oppo­site, I think fash­ion is strong­ly going towards dig­i­tal and tech­nol­o­gy which I think can be real­ly help­ful, but every­one has dif­fer­ent tastes and views. I real­ly like the craft and phys­i­cal fash­ion so I’ll go down that route and not go for the digital”

You can check Gyouree Kim’s lat­est col­lec­tions here.

Here you can see Fash­ion Scout LFW AW23 full sched­ule – fea­tur­ing more designers.