Each September and February, four fashion capitals of the world come to brim with excitement, for it is the seasonal parades known as Fashion Weeks. Loud, colorful, creative and manic, the mesmerising energies of the live shows are a sight to behold.
London can be relied upon to offer festive treats to the eyes, both in terms of color and new talent. Alongside greats that have returned to the city, there is a fresh and new frisson of young and emerging designers. Support and enthusiasm for these designers is noticable — rightfully so — and Vauxhall Fashion Scout is a prime example of this. An umbrella of exhibitions and catwalk shows in the grand Freemasons Hall, they headline a number of emerging talents, providing support and precious opportunity to show their collections to an international audience.
It is under this initiative that innovative and super-colorful Nova Chiu has come to light. Graduating in 2011 from London College of Fashion with a BA in Surface Textiles, Chiu has quickly displayed her mastery over new technologies and color. Debuting last season thanks to VFS, her bold nomadic-inspired statement-collection was embraced within the industry and she became ‘one to watch’. In her second collection, Bon Voyage, pastel colors are mixed with the bold, featuring in landscape prints that echo Chiu’s own adventures across the globe. With silk and satin acting as a base, Nova Chiu oozed onto them an intricate series of digitally created patterns of woodlands, rivers, and more.
Alongside the stalwarts of London Fashion, Nova Chiu now stands to serve as a force. In her beautifully cut tailoring techniques, the shapes only add to idea of the colorful female; of the adventuress and of a new female designer unafraid to her express herself.
There is a vivaciousness which can only come through color, together with a designers ability and readiness to serve it. A parallel exists within Spring Summer collections, their fresh directions echoing nature’s own ‘new collections’. Spring and Summer are inherently colorful and we should not shy away from their brilliant months, yet it is refreshing to see a turn towards such an attitude year-round. Discontent with half the year, today’s breed of fashion designers are pushing seasonal boundaries in color innovation and coordination, adopting new technological processes which set creativity ablaze. The future’s bright.
TEXT by Bojana Kozarevic
