It’s Award Season! FS named the University Charity Fashion Show of the Year.
Model Freya Lomas wearing Viva Carpe. Shot by FS photographer Sofia Scarselli.
The St Andrews Charity Fashion Show is honored to have received the Scottish Fashion Association’s award for the University Charity Fashion Show of the Year! This year’s award ceremony was hosted at The George Hotel in Edinburgh on February 16th. Representatives for The St Andrews Charity Fashion Show enjoyed a night filled with champagne and fashion as they met many other individuals and collectives making their mark on the fashion industry.
The Scottish Fashion Association (SFA) provides a platform for the next generation of designers and textile creators to showcase pioneering innovations and ideas to drive the fashion industry to Net Zero. Scottish platform, global audience. We were honored to have their judges in attendance at this year’s show and to have been chosen for this prestigious award against the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow charity fashion shows.
Left: FS2023 Directors Carleton Blackwell, Brynn Hanson, & Maxwell Stroemer Middle: FS2023 Executive Director Carleton Blackwell, accepting the University Charity Fashion Show award on behalf of FS2022 & FS2023 Right: FS2022 Directors Gemma Borra-Paley, Sophia Do, & Felix Barlett, joined by Music Advisor James Patrick Wearmouth
This year’s awards were based on a cumulation of FS2022 and FS2023 recognizing the work of both committees, spearheaded by Gemma Borra-Paley, Felix Bartlett, and Sophia Do in 2022 and Carleton Blackwell, Brynn Hanson, and Maxwell Stroemer in 2023. Through the hard work and dedication of these committees, FS has seen an incredibly successful bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. FS2022 and 23 have garnered the attention of global press, including The Guardian and The Times, and attracted high-profile sponsors, including Moet, Absolute Vodka, Tiffany & Co, Dior, and many more.
The St Andrews Charity Fashion Show has always strived to promote our core values of charity, sustainability, and legacy, while also creating a safe space for diversity and creativity to take center stage. Through the perseverance of FS committees throughout the years, we continue these efforts. The recognition of these efforts by The Scottish Fashion Association is a privilege as many of our values align with theirs:
Model Angelica O’Donnell wearing Alchemy London. Shot by FS photographer Jasmin Zheng.
Sustainability
The Scottish Fashion Association “educates, mentors and provides support to talent in Scotland to accelerate circular business models, sustainable supply chains, and catalyzes an active network of knowledge exchange to incentivize recycling, garment care, and end of garment use.”
Throughout our history, we have strived to stay on top of the current of the fashion industry, to reflect not the trends but the movements driving fashion forward. As the climate crisis continues to threaten our lives, and indeed more acutely the lives of those in the global south, certain brands, organizations, and people have recognized the need for dramatic upheavals in fashion production and consumption. From the treatment of garment workers to the textiles making garments themselves to the lengthening of our clothes lifespans, every actor along the lines of production and consumption play a part in improving or maintaining the norms.
The new addition of Fashion 4 The Earth (F4TE) Week by the FS committee aims to promote sustainable designers through our pop-up shop, educate on ways to become more sustainable through our rework shop, mentor the next generation of designers and fashion industry professionals through our panel, and support Mossy Earth in their effort to fight climate change through donation.
This year’s designers were entirely comprised of sustainable designers featuring Nicole Miller, Alchemy London, Of Planet Earth, Ava G Knits, and many more.
Diversity & Inclusion
The Scottish Fashion Association “drives diversity and inclusion within the fashion industry. The board will continue to drive positive change and fight discrimination within the industry.”
The St Andrews Fashion Show strives to be a committee and collection of models representative of the St Andrews community. Within the small community of St Andrews, we are granted the privilege as an international institution to have a population filled with diverse ethnicities, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic backgrounds. FS strives to showcase these voices through the committee and models.
In addition, FS uses its platform to showcase a variety of designers on our catwalk. FS2023 designers include St Andrews student designers Kinu Dadaille and Isabella Barber from the committee, as well as St Andrews-based designer WashMe Studios. Also featured are designers from across the UK, the United States, and Europe.
Diversity and inclusion are always an ongoing mission, and FS is always educating ourselves on how to do better. The FS Committee and Model Census will be released soon.
Model Joshua Diri wearing WASHME STUDIOS. Shot by FS photography Jasmin Zheng
You can read more about FS2023 from The Scottish Fashion Association here.