Roundtable Talk with the Graduate Fashion Students 2024 chaired by NATALIEBCOLEMAN.
Join the graduate fashion students of 2024 for a roundtable talk chaired by designer and educator NATALIEBCOLEMAN. The discussion will center around futures in fashion, how personal experiences influence design processes, student life challenges, why happiness should matter in fashion, and accountability in design.
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The BA Fashion Design aims to educate students to become professional practitioners in the field of fashion and its related industries. Our students are encouraged to have an awareness of fashion in its social and cultural context and to bring that understanding to their work.
The department places great value on its industry and professional links that gives students an insight into real-world commercial requirements. Emphasis is placed on developing informed, creative designers, who are prepared for the needs of industry. Our Fashion Design students learn about the design process as it applies to the Fashion industry.
Elements covered include visual research, drawing, design process, fashion design, knitwear design, pattern cutting, garment construction, illustration presentation, manufacturing techniques and market research. There is a focus on understanding fashion in context and students undertake field research, trend analyses, customer profiling and branding within a wide range of contexts for the fashion industry.
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Design Building, 4th Floor
Natalie B Coleman is a native of the Republic of Ireland. By 2007, she was studying at Central Saint Martins in London for her MA Fashion in Womenswear under the tutelage of the late Louise Wilson. In 2011, Natalie set up a studio and launched her eponymous label. Her collections play on feminine silhouettes with humorous and sometimes subversive illustrative prints and motifs. In that same year, Natalie published an Archive with renowned graphic designer and academic Paul Bailey. This book was specially commended at the Best British Book Design and Production Awards and was bought by London College Of Fashion as part of their permanent library. The label has been developing a strong feminist rhetoric that now informs the collections. This narrative is coupled with opulent fabrics, appliques, whimsical hand beaded and hand painted surface decoration. In 2013 Natalie became the first Irish designer ambassador to Microsoft. This is an exciting role for the label bridging innovation and technology with fashion. Other NATALIEBCOLEMAN collaborations include working with fellow St. Martins MA student Derek Lawlor on a knitwear collection for Autumn/Winter 2016 which showed at London and Paris Fashion Weeks.
In 2019 the label was delighted to officially partner with the United Nations Population Fund on a collaborative SISTERS collection. The title SISTERS was influenced by the powerful bonds that exist between women and girls in our contemporary global society and the partnership emphasised the importance of sisterhood in times of rapid and turbulent social change. The collection symbolised the collaborative power of sisterhood: the coming together of women to mobilise and build support systems – to fulfil the promise of rights and choices for all. This launched at London Fashion Week and then Paris. In November 2019 Natalie was invited by the UNFPA to give a presentation on her design work at the United Nations Nairobi Summit. Natalie was also invited by supermodel and philanthropist Natalia Vodianova’s charity Elbi to speak on the Let’s Talk panel in Nairobi on how creativity and design can break through stigmas and taboos surrounding women’s health. In 2020, Natalie released her latest ‘Sister / Mother / Goddess’ collection. This was a series of custom-made designs photographed at the Museum of Literature Ireland, bringing together a diverse group of Irish women to posture regally in elegant, silk taffeta and smocked tulle creations inscribed with delicate hand-embroidered or printed symbols and details. Natalie presents her collections at London and Paris Fashion Weeks. In addition to owning and running a successful label Natalie is also a fashion lecturer at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin.