Central Saint Martins First Year Students Set Defiantly Playful and Wildly Creative Agendas for Fashion’s Future

“To ‘wave the white flag’ has been the official international symbol of surrender. With this year’s White Show, first year BA students are doing anything but that.” The collective voice of the 19 and  20 year olds at Central Saint Martins resounded through the show they’d elected, this year, to name “The Playground.”

Cailee Moy, a fashion communication student amongst the newest college cohort wrote the show notes. Hyper-conscious of their fortune in entering school able to convene in post-isolation real life, she characterized her peers as being, “like the brides of our generation: pushing the boundaries, breaking gender barriers, and enforcing new ideas. Surrender? Absolutely not.”

There’s always a special beauty about this rite of passage, end-of-first year barometer of the times. The class assignment has been the same for decades: to make an outstandingly individual outfit from an identical allocation of white fabric—or, if you’re studying fashion communication, to form teams to back up designer peers with casting, dressing, producing, and promoting it. It’s both a leveler and a provocation to express yourself with very little.