The Inspiration behind my 2010 graduate collection

Charlie May, Fashion Design

My inspiration initially derived from sparse decaying landscapes. I

liked how lonely and beautiful they looked and imagined that the whole

world was like this.

Taking further inspiration from the work of photographer Sebastião

Salgado. His imagery stark, and often in black and white portray a

sense of longing and loss, whilst being beautiful to look at. This

then developed into a post apocalyptic theme, focusing on survival.

My collection has been very hands on, I have rusted, dyed, bleached,

sand blasted, rasped my materials, to achieve that decayed look.

I also chose fabrics such as scarred leather, fine silks and wools to

complete the look.

I have always played with the nature of hard and soft fabrics. In this

collection I have combined the two, often in the same garment to give

great contrast. For example, silk and plastic tubing. I have also been

using the parts of the hide that other designers would discard, in

keeping with the aesthetic, I find the scarred, raw outer parts of the

leather as beautiful as the inner.

Buckles and ties feature heavily throughout as I wanted to get a real

feel that you were having to construct your own garments

Taken from our years UWE Fashion blog