Central Saint Martins Fall 2007 Ready-to-Wear Collection on Style.com: Runway Review

Central Saint Martins

REVIEW

COMPLETE COLLECTION

Central Saint Martins Fall 2007 Ready-to-Wear

LONDON, February 16, 2007

By Sarah Mower

Thanks to its fiery visionary, professor Louise Wilson, the Central Saint Martins M.A. degree course has set the gold standard for international fashion education. All the rising names of London fashion—Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Marios Schwab, Todd Lynn, Roksanda Ilincic—have passed through the white hell of professor Wilson's crits, while many others populate the design studios of Dior, Lanvin, Chanel, Prada, Marni, Gucci, Jil Sander, and more.

That's why, once a year, the graduation ceremony is packed with headhunters, newshunters, and top store buyers craning to see a show that has by now become more than just an indicator of local Brit ideas. The class of 007 is German, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, Australian, Greek, Spanish, Korean, and Russian, as well as English—and this year, it was a pair of Russians who swept off the glittering trophies.

Tatiana Katinova's long, lean black-and-white tailoring had a high padded shoulder with a rounded compactness that was echoed in the hips—judging by this collection, she could slot into a job at Jil Sander tomorrow. She won the overall prize, while Georgy Baratashvili scooped an £8,000 check as his reward for redesigning Puma sneakers as gold-and-silver dance shoes (they'll be delivered, for men and women, to Puma stores in August).

Meanwhile, the best of their classmates' collections added an index of which way the avant-garde is pushing things. Annalisa Dunn's total sweater dressing—all multistriped poncho dresses, hoodie-scarves, wraps, hats, and socks—added more energy to the excitement bubbling around knits. Kryzsztof Strozyna's oversize lacquered-wood geometric cuffs, giant knot-pins, and chains looked great on belted beige dresses with the big, rounded shoulders that are the London trend. Tessa Birch designed wide simple dress shapes with bold angular blocks in gray, black, and mustard yellow, and filled them in with patches of PVC and plastic paillettes.

Overall, no Christopher Kane burst to the forefront this year, but this cohort of Saint Martins talent still provided plenty of directional clues: in with padded shoulders, calf-length skirts, scarves, wraps, stripes, and strong color—and out with last year's volume, flounces, and eighties body dresses. That's the kind of pointer the industry comes to snaffle up here, even if not a single one of these graduates is ready to sell a stitch.

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A.F. Vandevorst	Abaeté	ADAM
Akris	Alberta Ferretti	Alessandro Dell'Acqua
Alexander McQueen	Alexander Wang	Alexandre Herchcovitch
Alice Roi	Andrew Gn	Anna Molinari
Anna Sui	Ann Demeulemeester	Anne Klein
Antonio Berardi	Aquascutum

Badgley Mischka	Balenciaga	Balmain
BCBG Max Azria	Behnaz Sarafpour	Betsey Johnson
Biba	Bill Blass	Blumarine
Bottega Veneta	Brian Reyes	Bruce
Bruno Pieters	Burberry Prorsum

Calvin Klein	Carlos Miele	Carmen Marc Valvo
Carolina Herrera	Celine	Central Saint Martins
Chado Ralph Rucci	Chaiken	Chanel
Chloé	Chris Benz	Christian Dior
Christian Lacroix	Christopher Kane	Collette Dinnigan
Comme des Garçons	Costello Tagliapietra	Costume National
Cynthia Rowley

D&G	Daks by Giles Deacon	Daryl K
Dennis Basso	Derek Lam	Derercuny
Diane von Furstenberg	DKNY	Dolce & Gabbana
Donna Karan	Doo.Ri	Douglas Hannant
Dries Van Noten	Dsquared²	Duro Olowu

Elie Saab	Elie Tahari	Emanuel Ungaro
Emilio Pucci	Emporio Armani	Erdem
Erin Fetherston	Etro