Final year Fashion and Textiles students from The Island VI Form recently held an exhibition and runway show of their final pieces for the course, entitled “Ballgown”.

The students all created spectacular ballgowns, impressing audiences with their technical skills, imagination and innovation. Each gown was made for a specific person in mind and was derived from a choice of exciting and diverse thematic approaches. The brief determined that the fabrics were to be reclaimed or sustainably sourced as a response to the enormous waste and exploitation often associated with the fashion industry.

The exhibition ran daily from 27 June – 9 July at Independent Arts in Newport, and opened with a runway show on the evening of 26 June to a packed audience. Excitingly, for the first time, it was also live-streamed via Facebook. In order to give back to Independent Arts for their ongoing support, a collection was arranged on the evening of the runway show and over £100 was raised!

Now that the students have finished the course, we expect them all to be receiving extremely impressive results in the summer and can’t wait to see where their talents will take them in the future.

Course Tutor, Sarah Cox said “We would like to congratulate this year’s cohort on a fantastic end of year project. The show and exhibition were a huge success; a direct reflection of the hard work and determination they have shown from the very beginning of the course. The creativity and individuality of their designs is remarkable and we are so proud of each and every one of them. They all brought a fresh perspective and unique, innovative approach which resulted in stunning final pieces.”

The Island VI Form would like to thank Independent Arts for once again hosting our students and their work: their support is truly invaluable. Thanks also must be extended to everyone who attended the runway show or exhibition and provided such wonderful feedback to the students. Finally, thanks to our talented photography student, Dan Orme for photographing the event.

A new cohort of students will begin the Fashion and Textiles course in September and applications are still welcome from any interested current Year 11 students. There are single and double award options available, enabling young people to pursue this interest whilst also combining other subjects/courses; expanding and broadening future career prospects.