Having recently attended the Royal College of Art’s work in progress show, I thought that it was vital to try and document some of the brilliant up and coming talent that was evident there. One person who caught my eye was Lorren Johnson, so, after picking up her contact card I got in contact with her to hear about her work and inspirations behind it and much to my delight she happily obliged and here is what she said…

“I never intended to do fashion, although when I do look back there were times when I said I wanted to have my own fashion label. But I had no intention of following it up as a career because I wanted to do art and music. When I was 14yrs I wanted to do resistant materials working with wood, metal and plastics. But I was put into a textiles class instead and loved it, since then I have never looked back. I continued my journey by completing an art foundation, a fashion degree and currently now my Masters. Plus thinking about it everything down to my interest in materials such as plastics and metals with my music influences, you can see these influences in my garments.

I seek inspiration from music to photography, art and even something as simple as just drawing inspiration from an item or a material. My work has a street essence combined with some crafty elements. I love to use laser cutting techniques because it gives a graphic edge to the materials I use. The meaning behind my outfit came from a childhood memory of me going to Lego land. I was fascinated that a small brick could become a large creation. I didn’t want to be too obvious that I was using Lego, so I made it into a 2dimentional symbol which enabled me to layer them to get a sense of dimension.  My advice to anyone who wants to do fashion is be yourself, believe in your work and experiment, experiment, experiment! Who knows what the future holds for me, but my plan is to start my own label. If I could sum up my work in three words it would be edgy, bold, and fun.  My aspirations are to have my own successful label dressing the “urban pioneer”.

After hearing Lorren’s reply it really proves that no matter what your inspiration or chosen pathway within the industry, the only way that you will succeed is with passion, something that she evidently has bucket loads of.  I really loved her final outcome shown there and you can see Lorren’s amazing garment in the pictures alongside this.

I really look forward to seeing her work up and coming in the future and wish her all of the best.