Three University of Westminster alumni will be showcasing their new Autumn/Winter 2022/23 collections on the runway at London Fashion Week which begins this week on Friday 18 February.
Steven Stokey Daley graduated from the Fashion Design BA Honours course in June 2020 and is showing on the opening day of London Fashion Week. His London Fashion Week debut in September 2021 won rave reviews, with Vogue calling it “Explosive”. He has already dressed major celebrity names including singer Harry Styles for his ‘Golden’ music video and actors Ian McKellen and Josh O’Connor.
Steven’s debut show took the form of a play, performed and written by a cast of the National Youth Theatre. The play depicts a visceral three-act drama co-written around the tensions of class, masculinity, race, sexuality, same-sex love, and institutionalized violence in British public schools for boys.
Speaking about his show, Steven said: “It feels like it’s the right time for creative industries to lean on each other, to provide opportunities for each other, and to support one another and to merge together.”
Professor Andrew Groves, Professor of Fashion Design at Westminster, said: “Having taught Steven in his final year at Westminster, it's amazing to see how far he's come since graduation, and how he's creating his own distinct vision of fashion on his own terms. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes next.”
Daley is a working-class boy from Liverpool who reinterprets the realm of British elitism through the institution of the British public school. He said: “I think it's interesting, you know... looking at codes that were historically associated with Harrow School, for example, and figuring out their equivalents of the school culture I'm more familiar with.”
Robyn Lynch, who graduated from the Menswear MA course in 2018, is showing at London Fashion Week on Saturday 19 February and is a recipient of the BFC NEWGEN award. Robyn Lynch is a Dublin-born menswear designer who founded her brand after graduating from Westminster. Lynch bases the brand's ethos and inspiration on her Irish upbringing and culture, paying homage to her roots with a youthful silhouette and traditional Irish cable knits.
Priya Ahluwalia is also showing at this year’s London Fashion Week. She is an LVMH Prize 2020 finalist and Fashion Award winner, who launched her namesake brand ‘Ahluwalia’ in 2018 after graduating from the University of Westminster's Menswear MA course.
Ahluwalia takes elements from her dual Indian-Nigerian heritage and London roots and explores the life of vintage and dead stock clothing, giving them new life through textile techniques. Ahluwalia uses photography to document her own research, which is an important part of her design process. It is a brand that focuses on creating one-of-a-kind forward-thinking garments for the modern man while employing responsible sourcing and manufacturing techniques.
Ahluwalia received the H&M Design Award in 2019, collaborated with Adidas at Paris Fashion Week for AW19, and has received international press in publications such as i-D, Vogue UK, Dazed & Confused, New York Times, More or Less and GQ, among others.
Find out more about Fashion courses at the University of Westminster.
