Holly Fulton, spring/summer 2010
Holly Fulton’s resumé boasts highlights such as working at Lanvin as a design assistant and more recently doing freelance work for Swarovski, alongside producing her own line of clothing. Inspired by Cubism and the Bauhaus “because of the attention to the graphic, strong colour and symmetry”, Holly Fulton is in a league of her own.
Starting her career after having a “stellar year” at the Royal College of Art studying an MA in Fashion Womenswear, Holly had access to many departments which helped her utilise her “love” of alternative materials, with metal, perspex, leather, suede, stingray and the obvious Swarovski crystal being amongst her favourites.
Not wanting to “comprise my own ideal of design”, Holly’s most recent S/S 10 collection is an amalgamation of bright and sharp oranges and yellows, interspersed with hand drawn city-like prints, with a dash of monochrome. It’s a mix of many of Holly’s inspirations, such as Pop Art, Art Deco, skyscrapers and ragga music. The vivid colours used and the city-prints are what Holly claims to “feel right to me aesthetically”. Touching on the subject of Pop Art, Holly holds the view that “nothing could be stronger than a slab of full-on colour with full-on decoration”. This is shown in the collection with clothes having injections of acid yellow and turquoise contrasted with the monochrome print.
Holly Fulton, spring/summer 2010
The clothes, which still have the hand-finished edge, intersperse modern materials and graphics with re-workings of older Couture techniques, giving a unique blend of the old with the new and, possibly, the future.
Starting the collection by drawing hundreds of designs then narrowing them down to a select 15 to pursue, the newest collection is inspired by an imaginary trip to New York, a place Holly wishes to visit again. Gaining inspiration from a guide book written for the opening of the Empire Estate building, Holly “loves” the “testimony to symmetry and the ‘Nouveau Riche’ architecture of its day” and this is evident from the tall skyscraper prints featured throughout her collection. Looking at the Paolozzi screenprint entitled Wittgenstein in New York gave Holly even more material on which to base her collection, “It looked like the inside of my head – all skyscrapers, bright colours, OCD pattern and machinery.”
With an ASOS line launching this month (with a second season already in place), future associations with Swarovski and further expansion of her jewellery and accessories line, Holly Fulton’s career is looking to soar sky high.
Holly’s S/S 2010 collection is currently stocked at Browns in London.
