I attended a lot of the off schedule shows this season (whilst Fashion Editor at Large hit all the big names and will be posting on them asap) which means I spent a fair amount of time in the Freemason's Hall covering the Vauxhall Fashion Scout designers. You might recall I was particularly excited about their Merit Award winner Hermione de Paula.
Vauxhall Motors (the prime sponsors) and Fashion Scout are both keen supporters of emerging British fashion talent and innovative design, and their partnership contributed a great deal to Hermione's first successful solo show:
This collection was a departure from last season's soft rose coloured hues. It was graphic and monochrome with shapes which served to exaggerate the female form.
After all the applause had subsided I managed to get a word with Hermione backstage:
E: This was you first solo show – how did it feel?
H: Really nerve wracking. I was more worried about the attendance than the actual show. You know when you throw a party and you panic that nobody will turn up?
E: What about the run up? Did anything go wrong or was it all smooth sailing?
H: It actually went well. This was the first time I’ve been super organised with my time. Having said that there was an episode with the snow, and then everyone got sick so I think I did the whole collection in a month and a half.
E: What was the inspiration for this collection?
H: Ice. I started off making my prints from ice sculptures. I borrowed a freezer from my local corner shop and it filled up my front room. I stuck half mannequins in it and sculpted around the form. Then I photographed the end product and used that as a starting point. In previous seasons I’ve used fresh flowers for my prints, this time I put the flowers in water and froze them, and created the wor4k from the result.
E: What were the locks and keys about?
H: It was kind of based around the idea of chastity belts. I used skeleton logo keys – everything has a lock and key because each piece is precious
E: What’s the next step?
H: I’m really excited to be with Vauxhall Fashion Scout. Who knows? David Koma and William Tempest have done really really well from this platform. We’ll have to see.