5th December 2023
Graduate Designer Interviews
What does the rise of the Celebrity Creative Director mean for our new generation of Designers?
Fashion houses are handing celebrities the steering wheel as more musicians, models and actors are being named ‘Creative Director’. I spoke to 5 final year fashion designers at Central Saint Martins to find out how this is impacting their dreams …Ruby Sida is a 22 year old final year fashion designer, whose work was shown in Vogue Portugal. She says ‘after my final collection I will have spent 7 years of my life studying fashion design’, explaining how unfair it is that, ‘fashion houses look to influencers and celebrities for sales’ rather than those years of hard work and training. She worries that fashion brands are becoming ignorant to real, integral ‘growth of actual creativity’ and explains how her initiative as a designer is all about ‘bringing historical garments into the modern’ with experimentation at the forefront of her work.
Meanwhile, Peiqi(Peggy) Yang, a final year Fashion Design and Knitwear student whose work has featured in Harper’s Bazaar Bulgaria and Pap magazine, has a very different view on the matter. She argues that even if a celebrity doesn't have experience in fashion design, ‘they might have a creative outlook on things’ and that the ‘overall vision is more important’. She argues that the involvement of a famous celebrity, helps merge other industries with fashion to achieve monetary objectives from horizontal integration. Peggy uses the analogy of the movie industry where ‘more and more popcorn movies are being produced’, with movie directors justifying it saying
‘bad movies are made for bad audiences’.
She explains how ‘the market that gives them direction on what to do next’. So having a celebrity creative director for fashion brands pays the bills, but does it shadow the work of skilled designers?
28 year old Pernilla Weinholz is studying Fashion Design and Marketing and has wider knowledge of the business side of the industry. She thinks ‘the whole system has to undergo a change where fashion moves away from fixation on a single face for a brand’ and that companies should market the ‘people involved in the actual design process’. After graduation her ‘dream would be to form an art and fashion collective with like minded people, promoting sustainability and a more positive environment in the fashion industry’. Her design initiative is all about ‘connecting sustainable craftsmanship with my own fantasy world’ and explains how the industry needs to focus more on the artistry of design.
Gaowei Ni, a final year Womenswear designer who has interned for the likes of Miss Sohee, explains that when ‘a celebrity becomes a creative director, what the brand actually gains is their influence’. She thinks it doesn’t affect the design integrity of a brand as much because there is ‘a mature design team’ backing the celebrity creative director. ‘Marketing is key in every business, but without good marketing… you're in trouble.’
Zac McGarry has interned for Maison Margiela and Christopher Kane and he echoes this saying, ‘behind the scenes the head designers and junior designers are the ones pulling the strings’. However he takes the same opinion as Pernilla and Ruby explaining, ‘I think it sucks designers don’t get the deserved recognition’. He references how ‘Kim Kardashian is a muse for Balenciaga’ but if she was to be their creative director… ‘obviously, it would not be good’. He tells me how much he enjoyed working for Maison Margiela and how its ‘a perfect example of a brand that has changed its legacy by hiring John Galliano. It’s now the opposite of what Martin was originally doing with his brand’. Zac says how much he adores John Galliano’s Maison Margiela, proving how successful he is as a creative director and designer.
After graduation Peggy and Ruby want to start their own brands, Gaowei wants to do a masters course, Pernilla wants to form her art and fashion collective and Zac wants to work for a big brand in Paris. Despite the hurdles these young designers are facing, be it getting the right funding or the competitive nature of the industry, I look forward to seeing their final collections. I hope they prove to us how valuable fashion students are to brands and make CEO’s realise the problems of hiring celebrities. But as true creatives Zac has an analogy for us, ‘if you are a painter, you paint what you want to paint’. And it's as simple as that