Great Britain, a dynamic country that has never failed with its creative and fashion industries, producing some of the most exciting, talented and genius minds we have ever seen; fashion designers past and present that include McQueen, Galliano, Ossie Clark and Dame Vivienne Westwood to name a few.
With no shortage of new talent emerging from this nation’s bastions of learning, spotting the true fashion stars of tomorrow can be no mean feat. Rather than proclaim the ‘next big thing’ it is perhaps wiser to offer to you our readers, those who have caught our eye. One such young designer is Scott Rennie, a Heriot-Watt graduate whose collection ‘Shadow People’ can be found on Perry Nelvill, an online fashion boutique dedicated to the collections of some of Britain’s most talented young graduates providing, them with a platform with which to reach an international audience.
Bold, brave and the epitome of creativity, Scott Rennie’s designs harken in part to the creations of another of the UK’s more established ‘bright young things’ Christopher Raeburn, as well as the iconic desconstructionalist silhouettes of the legendary Rei Kawakubo and Martin Margiela. Renee is prime example of how unrestrained creativity manifests into works of beauty and art.
The Shadow People/Abomination collection is inspired by optical illusions and how the eyes can be tricked by thinking you are visualising what is in front of you when you are not. To achieve this concept Renee designs garments with exaggerated oversized shapes and juxtaposing fabrics of varying levels of opacity and weight thus altering the visual and shape of the human body. Also inspired by gene splicing human and animal DNA, Renee introduces animal masks to his collection, models become no longer human, rather half animal, half human abominations.
As with many British designers, fashion design for this young man also serves as political statement, meant to provoke us into thought and action. Renee wants to ask us questions, “How far is too far? What does the future hold for mankind?… And is this it?!”