Whether it’s ‘high street’ or ‘high-end’, the decision making process for a designer always starts with an idea or set of influences.
Insights selects a diverse group of fashion designers that communicate their concepts and beliefs through clothing and accessories.
Hussein Chalayan: Fashion, objects and storytelling
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Katharine Hamnett: Political tees

Katharine Hamnett, another CSM graduate, is a fashion designer and political activist who made slogan t-shirts iconic in the ’80s. White tees with bold statements in black lettering tackled a range of political issues including nuclear weapons, world poverty and famine. According to Hamnett, a successful t-shirt is a voice, it has to make you think and (more importantly) act. Hamnett’s slogan t-shirts became cultural signposts of the era, they were featured in music videos (worn by artists such as Wham! and Queen). They were an inspiration behind the ‘Frankie Says Relax’ t-shirt design and more recently, were re-worked by House of Holland into a series of tongue-in-cheek t-shirts aimed at the fashion industry.
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Stella McCartney: Ethically led, high-end fashion
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Grace Wales Bonner: Race, colonialism, identity
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Bethany Williams: Community, sustainability and social change

To produce her final collection titled ‘Breadline’, London College of Fashion (LCF) graduate Bethany Williams used waste materials from food banks and recycled cardboard from Tesco. Focusing on the issue of hidden hunger in the UK, Williams developed an exchange of fresh fruit and vegetables for waste items from food bank users. She then collaborated with local craftsmen/women using traditional hand crafted techniques to create sustainable woven, printed, knitted and embroidered materials. Part of the profits from the collection will go back to The Vauxhall Food Bank to complete the cycle of exchange.
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Now it’s over to you: find other fashion designers who are making a difference. Share your #fashiontalksheros with us on Instagram: @ual_insights