Momo Wang——Craftsmanship for Happiness(2)

Byebye, Central Saint Martin's

Y:What's the most impressive thing happened during your three years at CSM?

M: I didn't take the foundation course, so I was less competitive than my classmates. During the first year I couldn't to anything. I didn't know how to use the library to do research, and my sketchbook just looked like a disaster. So I failed with first two projects. Teachers in CSM are very strict. The only respond you could get when you explained to them was 'Who cares.' So I was very depressed by that time, even thought that maybe I should just quite and go home. But I didn't give up eventually. During the summer vocation I stayed in London, gave myself a plan for reading and study. I came to the library everyday, drew a sketch everyday and study about other people's work, preparing for the project of the next term.
Then the first project of the next term was the shirt project. I already got an idea when others didn't know what was going on. It's like the early bird catches the worm. The project went on smoothly from the very begining. Teachers and classmates all witnessed my changing. I started to feel involved and learned a lot with my classmates. And by the end of the project I was the second runner in my class. My tutor gave me lots of encouragement and positive feedback, which made me much confident than ever. After my graduation show I stayed to say thank you to all my tutors. When I told the tutor of the shirt project about it he was very surprised. 'Oh, really! Did that help? Thanks for telling me. It's good to know.' Yes, if you didn't tell someone, then he would never know how thankful you felt about him and the truth that how important a simple encouragement could change a person's life.

Y: That's so touching. What's your next plan after the collection?

M: Many people said to me that I got a fame. But I don't think so. I'm not an ambitious person. I never thought about owning a brand or wining big awards. The collection was finished by me and my mother on our dinner table. I don't have any intership experienment. If you sent me to some big companies and ask me to do some collections, or research on the trends and markets, it's impossible for me. I still have lots to learn and to practise. And that's why people think my collection is fresh. I want to keep the freshness so I'm a bit reluctant to get into the industry so early.

Y: Then what do you want to do next?

M: I want to go back to China. I want to go to some remote areas to learn the folk art and craftsmanship of the minority ethnic in China. We have 56 different races in China and they all have their special craftsmanship, some of which are going to disapear from the world if nobody is going to carry on. I want to learn it, recreate it with my fashion and introduce it to more people. It's a long-term plan, 5 years at least. But I'm not in a rush. I'd like to confirm every step and make sure that I'm doing what I really want to do.

Y: Is your family supportive to your next plan?

M: Yes, of course. You see my mom is helping me with my work in London. And my dad is a ceramics artist. Those porcelain on my final collection was made by him. In the future I want to do some fashion-related fine art stuff, like some installation about fashion. And my dad said he could help me with the material and space. He's a mature and traditional artist, and he's also my teacher and my inspiration.

Y: That's great! By the end I want to ask a question that I'm always curious about. When did you strongly feel that you want to do fashion for the rest of your life?

M: Well, that's before I was born I guess. It's destiny. My mom wrote a letter to her twins sister when she was pregnant, saying that 'If it's a he, I want him to be an architect. If it's a she, I want her to be a fashion designer.' My mom likes to make clothes. She made my clothes from my childhood to highschool. My hometown is not a big city. People don't know what is fashion. I have the sense of fashion, and I read magazines on the internet. My dressing were always critisized by the teacher. But all my friends liked my style and they also thought I should be a fashion designer. Even though, my parents still wanted me to take the normal education. They sent me to high school and then I went to study arts history in college. But I always have the idea that I want to make clothes.
In college I got freedom in time and finance. I rent a very small basement near school and bought a 500-yuan (about 50 pounds) sewing machine. That's how I started. At first I made some shopping bags for my friends. They liked them very much. Then I began to make t-shirts, then trousers, one by one. They were just some pieces of cloth, but I just enjoyed making them and seeing people wearing them. My clothes is not the 'cool' stuff. But people wearing them are really feeling happy and satisfied. And that's my happiness as well.

Momo Wang——Craftsmanship for Happiness（1）

In the summer of 2011, the Chinese designer Momo Wang walked on the runway of the graduation show of Central Saint Martin's College. Compared to other tall and slim models, her 'mini' models with balloons in their hands looked so happy and so different. The young girl, who came from a small town in the north-east China, got the second runner-up award and soon became the most eye-catching designer in her country. Many people said she's going to be BIG and have her own label. But Momo said: I'm nothing but a craftsman. Like other boys and girls who love handmaking, she's still the simple Momo, who just likes making lovely stuff and gets a great sense of achiements by seeing people wearing her clothes.
We had our interview at CSM CharingX. The building has been sold to the bookstore next to it. Next term everything's going to be changed and all the students and teachers are moving to the new building at King's Cross. Sitting in the Room 406, we started our talk from the school that has witnessed the history of London fashion.
(Y:Yoanna, M:Momo)

The Happy Ending

Y: Let's start with the question that many people who have seen your final collection would be interested in. You are a fashion prints student. But why there's so many knitwear in the collection?

M:I've tried almost all the techniques in prints during the first and second year of my study. As a fashion designer I think I must cover as many aspects as possible. So I was thinking maybe I should give myself some challenges in my final collection, to combine prints with knitting, and to be more competitive than other students. I have many friends who study knitting and I've leant a lot from them. I learned knitting and crochet by myself. So in the final collection you can see many prints that are presented by knitting. It's a comprehensive present of my ability.

Y: Have you ever done any internship as the other students?

M:No. Generally speaking, we can take one or two years off to do some internship. But as soon as I realised that the building was going to 'disapear', I decided that I would graduate in 2011 and be the last year of students graduated from CSM at Charing X. I'm very emotional. I won't feel like I'm not ready. If it's the time then I must do the thing.
Y: Your collection is very, very different from the other students' work. Where did you get the inspiration? What made you to produce such a happy and fresh collection?
M: It's very ramdom actually. Last summer I was help one of my senior with her final collection. She made me realise that if I took one year off then when I was back there's going to be nothing in this building. Everybody was talking about our moving to King's Cross, but nobody had ever seen the building in such a mess and things were changing in the next year.  So the building and our prints room on the second floor are where my inspiration come. I want to build a connection between my final collection and my memory here at CSM.
Y: So is it the feeling of a happy ending you want to develop in the final collection?

M:Yes, a happy ending. You've seen the balloons. The idea is very simple: I wish the balloons could fly and bring the building at Charing X to King's Cross. Don't abandon it. Don't build a new one. Just take the old one with its story and fly to King's Cross together. Our school is located in the very central of London, which is a very expensive area. We understand it and we know there's nothing we can do with it. But it's sad to see the building with so many stories and memories of those designers disapeared and became a bookstore. So I wish the balloons could take our school to King's Cross with us, happily.

You see the first look. I picked the samples of the worsk of all the prints students from the 1930s to now, and sewed them on the skirt, like a bird's feather. The little girl is the building. She flies away with the memory in the building and in our prints room. When I'm old and look back to the collection, everything is still fresh and specific. I'm not very good at taking inspiration from abstract stuff. I love the natural and original thing. Many designers may focus more in contemporary art, but I love to go to the zoo, to the parks. My inspirations are all from my real life, and I realize them by hand.

Y: What's it look like at the very begining? Is there any important change in the final collection?
M:Yes, I can show you my sketch book. It's very different with the result. At the begining I made many specific prints, like brushes and paint cans. But then I found them too weak to support a whole collection. So I gave up a lot of them. I posted a Weibo (the Chinese Twitter) at that time, saying that: Momo Wang, this is not your last collection, but the first collection in your life! Many ideas can be realized in the future, but by then I had to decide on what to keep and what to give up. To focus on one concept and concentrate the 5 looks together and give a powerful feeling to people. That's the problems that every designer will face with.

There are many things that can support my collection in our prints room. My 30 classmates come from 18 different countries. Sometimes they just came to the studio in their own costume. Everybody can bring some inspiration to each other. So I take some elements from folk art, Russian culture and African totem into my collection.

Family, Teacher & Friends

Y: I met your mother at the day of your line-up. Did she and your family help you with the collection?
M:I went back to China and spent 10 days at home during the final, because there's too much handmaking and I couldn't finish it by myself. You know women like our mothers and aunts, they all know how to do knitting. So I told them what color and pattern I want, and they just helped me with the knitting. Sometimes my grandpa would come and check our process. My whole family was involved in my collection. So when I showed them the pictures of me getting the price, they were very surprised and said: We are on the international stage! I come from Jinzhou, a very small town in the north-east of China, where nobody barely knows anything about fashion. So when I asked them to help me they were very confused about what we were making. Does it look good? Can people really wear it? But they would listen to me explaining about it and later they started to accept this kind of edgy stuff and even changed their dressing style. I'm very happy to see that my whole family has become fashionable because of me.

Y: What's your relation with the tutors? What suggestion they'd given you?

M: My tutors like my personal style very much. So they told me not to do looks that fitted the average model. They wanted me to produce a collection like 5 looks of myself. To make the clothes that I want to wear. My difference with other designers is that I'm not professional. I mean, I've never done any internship, so I won't consider too much about trends and the market. I just search my own closet and make things that I like. And as for the propotion, my clothes is very different as well. Because I'm tiny and my models are tiny, my looks are all short at the top but long at the bottom. So my models all looks good in propotion, just like those 'giant' models.

Y: Well for the models, are they your friends? You seem to work very closely together.

M: Yes, some are my friends and some of them are my friends' friend. My tutor also introduced me some models and we even had a casting.  We've become very close friends after the final show. It's a very unique experience for all of us. They are very happy because they are all tiny people, who've never thought they could be models one day, and even walked on the runway for such a serious show.

Bye bye Room406

So our classroom on the 4th floor of CharingX is going to be closed in the next 2 weeks. Next term we are all moving to King's Cross, where a modern building of CSM is under construction now. It's sad to say goodbye to this old messy building. Some people say there's inspiration everywhere at CharingX. You may have used the sewing machine, which Alexander McQueen used to work with. Even in the toilet you can see student writing on the wall says something like: Stella McCartney used to wee here, I saw her! Eventhough the building is shabby and badly organized, we still love it, because it has a history of the London style.

If you can't open the door with the password, use your feet. Sue does that all the time.

And for our Room406, if you have come here you'll understand why the MA Fashion Journalism pathway accepts only 7-9 students each year. The size of the room can only afford these people. Thank god we have our own print machine, even though it's slow like an old grandpa, and sometimes refuses to cooperate. The room is chilly in winter, the door always opens with a creak, but it's our own room, and we love it.

by Yoanna Liu

On the meditating seat #2: What would Karl do?

This is what happens when one day a mood chart is drawn and some find themselves unrepresented:


Lets take a closer look since the lines are too thin:

And finally, the last words:


... We all know the famous story of Karl slimming to fit into Dior Homme Hedi Slimane-era jeans. So of course he would approve of this one. We are after all a fashion school with doors only just wide enough for model-sizes to get through; it is the first round for qualification into the college. You're not allowed - physically, socially and mentally - if you cannot even get pass the doors. Dear oh dear.

"It will give us more profile and will make us more visible. Central St Martins will be a really major art college development and one for the 21st century," says Sir John Tusa, chairman of the University of the Arts London, of the new compound.

I suppose wider doors in King's Cross won't be an issue for debate then, unless some disagreeing individuals with power prefer to keep the college less fashionable.

Sue-Wen

Disclaimer: Exaggeration of door size may be a result of being tired from hearing a certain fashion stereotype. Most of us consume ginormous amounts (sometimes to our own frustration as good food = calming break = money =/= a journalist's wage), and the irony is that Lindsey, the slimmest of us could down a horse in one sitting. Which makes me wonder where one will find delicious things around our new home - currently all I see within King's Cross are Chinese take outs and chip shops. Dining at the Gilbert Scott will be fanciful.

On the meditating seat #1

Before machines demolish our dear old Charing Cross branch - it's so easy to come to love this grubby building - Room 406 shall pay respect to the whispering walls of toilet stalls.

Home to 70-odd years of historic art and design, retreating to the loos can seem a tad disappointing at first. Few work worth preserving to be found in there. These musing walls - mostly comical, sometimes depressive and cynical, are at other times insightful or just plain mundane (worrying for an art school, if walls could indeed speak) - are where the stars past, present and future come to get rest, in one way or another.

Goodness knows who 'Niady/Nialy M.G.' is though. Sad times for her and thousands alike whose restroom-declarations may be the only mark they are to make publically - and who would've known, will crumble into dust come the summer. Sorry folks. I suppose the likes of Christopher Kane to Phoebe Philo were too engrossed scribbling in their sketchpads than on restroom walls but you never know…

More seatings to come.

Sue-Wen

CSM Memoirs - Part 2

The enfant terrible of Indian fashion Kallol Datta recalls his favourite moments as part of class of 2006, BA (Hons) Womenswear at Central Saint Martins.

After completing my design studies in Kolkata, I felt the need of studying a bit more. I stood out like a bloodied thumb at the design school in Kolkata, and my education in design seemed extremely restrictive in nature. On applying to Central Saint Martins and being accepted to their BA Womenswear degree course, the feather in the cap (or so it seemed) was the direct entry into second year. 

The initial months were full of despair and wanting to head to a more generic educational setting. Nothing could ever prepare me for what studying at St. Martins would entail. I used to think, “Is it always supposed to be this difficult”? The class already had their cliques formed, and with my interpersonal skills being retarded, I obviously did not make friends at the beginning. I was defensive about my work, skipping tutorials, barely managing to submit coursework on time and more importantly, barely spending time at the campus.

Oddly enough what got me spending hours at school was the library. I was looking to kill an hour while waiting for a friend, and it got me hooked. The library (for lack of a better word) at my design school in Kolkata was barely a room with magazines and trend forecasting books (which I never took a shining to). Here at St. Martins it was that and then so much more. I’ve spent days cooped up inside, stepping out only for a loo break/ cig break/ hot cocoa break. This in turn got me conversing with students from other courses, which made me realise that I wasn’t the only one feeling the way I was. I started taking notice of my surroundings and the multiple imperfections in the building in which the school was contained, fascinated me. It wasn’t sterile or supremely chic unlike other schools. Walking through narrow, musty passageways to reach my 2nd floor studio, sitting on the stairs next to a caged elevator shaft which hadn’t been used for at least a decade (give or take), graffiti ridden toilets – surprising as it may sound; visually all of this had a calming effect on me.

This translated across my work at school. Nothing had to be perfect. All you needed was strong intent and this helped dealing with people around me who were extremely enthusiastic and inspired. It was an uphill climb from hereon (I’d like to think so), and creating my graduating collection in 2006, was something I hold close to my heart even today.

One would be very fortunate to have studied and graduated from the 107 Charing Cross outpost. The move to King’s Cross will see a whole new wave of technological advancements, containment of all courses under one roof and studio spaces reduced by 20% in size. However, I do hope that the inexplicable auras which one imbibed in (however late) at the Charing Cross building, moves onto the new school site.

Kallol Datta with classmate Yuna Yang 

Kallol Datta's design at BA Graduation show

A model walks in Kallol Datta creation from his 
fall/winter 2011 collection showcased at Wills 
Lifestyle India Fashion Week held in April this year

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In summer 2011, Central Saint Martins relocates to a new home at King's Cross. The move to this extraordinary state-of the-art space will mark a new era in arts education.

CSM Memoirs

BA Fashion Print ex-student recalls her favourite memories at CSM:

• Empty print room. Second floor of Charing Cross Road, walking through the blue swing doors and finding only Imogen Evans in her office. Silence and space was a rarity, and with rumours of the new print room at King's Cross being smaller, with more students per class, I imagine these will be more like gold dust.
• Soho. Leaving college in the afternoon and taking a thirty-second walk to Old Compton street for an impromptu evening of debauchery. 
• Less health and safety, and more room for experimentation in the print room. Health and safety is important, yes, but I believe it can also hinder a print student's learning and understanding of everything she/he can accomplish in print design. Some students learnt they could flood the dye room twice in one day if they ignored the rules, and left the taps running unsupervised.  I got acetic acid in my eyes on more than one occasion, but I did learn to wear goggles in my own time, when mixing chemical substances. Adding copious amounts of cobalt blue dye to your mix spells recipe for disaster — models with blue armpits don't look appealing. However, good surprises were always worth the hours spent waiting for things to dry, steam and dry again.

Leaving Charing Cross: I’m not entirely sure how I feel about CSM moving to King's Cross.  Sad when I first heard but I no longer study there and after many expensive hours with my therapist, I have managed to get over the initial shock.

Some say it’s the students that make the college. Some say it’s the tutors. I haven’t heard anyone say it’s the building itself, but certainly the area in which it is situated helps inspire its frequenters. As an ex-student, you know it’s an amalgamation of all three — students, tutors, location. Assuming they’re not getting rid of the staff and CSM intends on accepting new students for the following 50 years, 2 out of 3 aren’t changing.

King's Cross isn’t Soho, but it is in central London and a hell of a lot closer to Paris.

Good Times: Print tutor David Kappo with the legendary Nathalie Gibson at the BA Fashion after-show party

Colour-drenched memories:
BA print room located on second floor, CSM

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In summer 2011, Central Saint Martins relocates to a new home at King's Cross. The move to this extraordinary state-of the-art space will mark a new era in arts education.