Fashion crush: Martina Austin Spetlova and Thomas Tait

Martina Austin Spetlova

Memory is a funny, fickle thing. During LFW, you see so much, so often that it becomes difficult to remember what you saw where and who designed it. Especially at the student shows where twenty odd graduates each present a capsule collection, even the most wildly divergent styles tend to meld into one.

At the time of the CSM graduate show last February, I really only remember being taken with Shao-Yen Chen's Marie Antoinette white mini-dress poodle puffs. Helpfully, a friendly blogger has complied a great list of all the students at the CSM show and when I looked again, two names caught my eye: Martina Austin Spetlova and Thomas Tait.

 

Shao-Yen Chen

I vaguely remember hhhhmmming contentedly to myself when both of these collections were presented, but seemed to have forgotten about them in all the rushing around thereafter, so it was nice to be recently reminded about the CSM show.

In my typical bipolar way, these two designers are at opposite ends of a spectrum with alien-angled bodymorphing dominatrix at one end and trampy Punky Brewster meets Rainbow Brite at the other.