City of Westminster Arts Council: Youth Avenues Fashion show 2005

 

 

 

 

The fashion show took place at the delightful venue of Paddington Hilton and attendance levels were high.  The Youth Avenue Project has been running this since 1979 and is a wonderful eclectic mix of Black Caribbean participants.

 

The project helps to boost the skills of young people between the ages of eight to twenty four by developing creative skills and using this as a positive progression by improving the youngster’s future employment opportunities.

 

The projects mission is to:

 

‘The centre provides a wealth of activities and education and social based projects of which AQA accredited. Inclusion on these projects provides the young people with great self esteem and enhances their employment opportunities.’

 

The activities they are involved with the project are the following;

 

‘…football, music technology, dance and acting classes, and homework support….popular summer project, Avenues Fm, a radio station run entirely by young people…’

 

The centre provides the members with that bit of extra opportunity and fundamental skills that benefit themselves and the community around them.

 

 

The show itself demonstrated that there was a lot of passion within the project from both the organisation behind the scenes to the participants themselves. I did not realise the amount of gifted young people you can find in one place and the quality of performers.

 

The show started in a professional manner with two presenters, both who spoke confidently, well articulated and are also involved with the Avenues FM radio. The first act introduced was then a singer ‘Lil Red’, who dressed for her name and sang so beautifully, I felt like X factor can only get better if this is the future of talent that will be shown!

 

The first fashion show then commenced and the models were named ‘Westend Guys and W10 Girls.’ This scene included evening wear satin dresses that were designed by the models themselves, using the assistance of professional designers, and some of the communities own designers; ‘Carleen & Cat’. The designs were elegant, very wearable and I could see them appealing to a majority of the market today. The models were a variable sizes, and shapes, which I think in a real label is important to demonstrate so your markets is broadened. It was a real fashion show for real people.

 

 

The male models, one in particular, throughout the show kept managing to steal the spot light with his impressive dance moves, which made the show even more entertaining! The garments themselves were of a good standard reflecting plenty of creative ability in these communities.

 

The next catwalk show was for ‘urban’ wear catwalk, not with new individual designers, but street wear styled by the models themselves. This was an electric performance, fast paced with a funky soundtrack. It was nice to see their routines work and the creative influences mould together. 

 

More musical talent then followed the catwalk show, again influencing the youths to express themselves in productive ways, even putting in touch with recording studios to nurture their skills. The interval then concluded the first half of the show and I was thoroughly looking forward to the second half of the show.

 

 

I wasn’t disappointed. After the interval the show continued with a different type of fashion parade, by having ‘Cyko’ another musical talent, continuously rapping whilst the models on stage did their performances with more ‘urban’ street wear. I think this demonstrated to me the fashion that is popular among youth culture today. It basically included a lot of tight cut tops, glitzy dresses and denim was also a big presence on stage. It is actually quite helpful for buyers and perhaps designers alike to take note of markets like these in the youth culture, as this shows you want is demand for the youth of today. They are creating the trends that are popular and are what retailers need to sell!  

 

The act to follow was then a dance group named ‘Silent Steps’, which was a variety of dance pieces, which were mainly urban street dancing routines, involving a lot of impressive body bopping and breaking dancing. This was probably the part of the show that was the biggest spectacle, as the audience was amazed movements both these children and teenagers could create- I must say I was stunned by this scene; I definitely left Paddington with those moves tucked away in my mind!

 

The next catwalk was called ‘Yemalla’ meaning; ‘the African Goddess of the sea and the moon’.  This scene was styled and designed by African designer; ‘Ola, of Sprit of Nyanga.’ These garments were completely based on traditional fabrics and designs from African culture, which was great because the show had strategically progressed form the new designer’s styles to now a traditional conventional look, which the youths seemed to appreciate and mix with their own style. Male models stayed in suits while the females were in brightly coloured fabrics in dresses, skirt suits, hats, trousers, etc. The collection was interesting and educational for the project to learn about different cultures and collaborating tradition into culture today.

 

At the end of the evening, we concluded with the AQA awards ceremony, where the members received recognition certificates. This was a genuinely lovely evening and it was excellent to see that fashion as an industry was used as a creative device to motivate younger people into realising their potential. I feel these projects should be expanded into a wide cross section of other communities throughout London and the UK.

 

 I would just like to congratulate all the members of Youth Avenues for a marvellous performance. Great job by Westminster Arts Council for supporting such a worthwhile project and let’s hope these types of projects continue to produce the youth characters that we need in industry today.