The London College Of Style: Fashion as the Arts

Greetings all! My name is Leigh Loosbrock and I am yet another LCS fashion student learning in this glorious city of London, as the out-of-country traveller. I’m from the states- Chicago, Illinois- having ventured out of my American bubble solely to attend LCS and have had the most fantastic experiences through learning here.

One of my favourite parts about this course is the staff’s ability to get all of the students to think outside the box and find new places where we can gain inspiration for our projects, our photo shoots, and even ourselves. They have truly done a great job in building up the confidence of all students to experiment with new looks, colours, and ideas and push us to really dig deep to find our creativity.

With that said, one of the most fascinating yet conventional places where I’ve been getting my inspiration from are the window displays and visual merchandising techniques of retailers out here. With the amount of sourcing items, fabric shopping, and rummaging around that I’ve been doing for the course, I’ve had the opportunity to get sick of shopping, but I have to say, it never gets old on the streets of London because of the retailers impeccable ability to catch the eye with their visual merchandizing techniques and window displays. They make the most interesting creations out of materials and props that, to the average human eye, would make absolutely no connection to fashion.

Granted, this could have to do with the fact that I’m from the states, and our high street stores have yet to reach that level of serious artistic ability through fashion, but seriously! Some of them are surprisingly crafty and I have to admit, they have really helped to get my idea pot brewing!