Class Of 2021—In Process At The Central Saint Martins School Of Art & Design
Process was also at the centre of Claudia Gusella’s BA Fashion: Fashion Design Womenswear collection.
She created her garments from the unlikeliest of things: oyster shells, duck eggs, beer cans and bioplastics made with by-products from the meat industry.
Everything is Great is the personal reflection of a grieving process:
“I was grieving for an idea that I had of myself.”
While an intensely personal piece of work, the collection was made during the pandemic, itself a collective experience of trauma.
The collection combines protection (chainmail and iron maidens) and intense fragility (just imagine wearing a dress made of eggshells).
The visual references are Medieval because the designer was in Italy during this time and reflecting on the symbolism she found around her.
Those historic symbols gave her a route beyond herself: “I needed distance to tell what I wanted to tell and 1,000 years felt like the right amount of distance.”
The extraordinary range of material is accompanied by the range of techniques: “I'm obsessed with making. I like using my hands and my brain, that perfect unison. I'm very physical with my process. I’m told that I'm very material-oriented but I struggle to see that because I also feel concept-oriented."
Claudia was keen to make a collection that could be both fantastical and sustainable; the egg dress, for example, is entirely biodegradable:
It's possible to do something extreme in a sustainable way. You can enjoy something knowing that the planet wasn't harmed in the process. — Claudia Gusella
Claudia’s garments are visions that embrace personal and planetary mortality in their fragility. But in Isis’ work, it is the permanence of ceramics that bring with it a material imprint of the past, a witness to histories too long unheard.
Though very different in narrative, both demonstrate how hand-making makes manifest in the most human of ways.
The extraordinary range of material is accompanied by the range of techniques: “I'm obsessed with making. I like using my hands and my brain, that perfect unison. I'm very physical with my process. I’m told that I'm very material-oriented but I struggle to see that because I also feel concept-oriented."
Claudia was keen to make a collection that could be both fantastical and sustainable; the egg dress, for example, is entirely biodegradable:
It's possible to do something extreme in a sustainable way. You can enjoy something knowing that the planet wasn't harmed in the process.
About Central Saint Martins
Central Saint Martins is alive with different ways of thinking, making and doing. Across art, design and performance, our students create the ideas, materials and actions for a better future.
Creative practice combines the ability to imagine new futures with the means to deliver them.
As such, artists and designers are equipped to address our urgent global challenges – from tackling the climate and biodiversity emergencies to forging more equitable societies.
Our students work with hope and uncertainty, using their compassion and vision to shape the world through creative action.
What we do is always connected to others. Our community goes beyond building, beyond disciplines and beyond borders.
From local neighbours to global partners, Central Saint Martins collaborates with others to build knowledge and transform objects, systems and lives for the better.
We understand that good things happen when people work together.
At Central Saint Martins, we believe that art, design and performance can generate real, productive change.
