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
