All Walks’ salutes designer Mark Fast at the Body Confidence Awards
Mark Fast accepts the All Walks' Fashion Visionary Award from Caryn Franklin
Image by Annabel Staff
Mark Fast, the King of Knitwear, made a rare appearance at Parliament last week to receive a well-deserved award.
The first ever Body Confidence Awards in association with Bare Minerals, presented by Jo Swinson MP, acknowledged Mark as a fashion leader for showing a range of body and beauty ideals within his London Fashion Week catwalk casting.
The All Walks Beyond the Catwalk Fashion Visionary award has landed! We are of course delighted and applaud Mark Fast as a creative genius and just as importantly, a thought leader.
His desire to create inclusive fashion messaging was something we all celebrated, back in May 2009, when Mark was amongst the first to accept the All Walks challenge to design a sample garment for a curvy model. Award winning photographer Kayt Jones recorded the iconic picture of Hayley Morley for i-D Magazine seen below, along with 7 other images featuring diverse models in dresses from designers like William Tempest and Hannah Marshall. It might have ended there, but Mark took things further.
Hayley Morley wears Mark Fast for All Walks
Image by Kayt Jones
Launching Hayley Morley, along with other similarly voluptuous models like Laura Catterall, the Special K model, on his London Fashion Week catwalk the following September, Mark made national and then global News. In fact, the resultant press tsunami took everyone by surprise.
The small All Walks HQ was inundated and after appearing three times in one day on the BBC News, Debra, Erin and I then realized the only way ‘fashion forward’ was to grow All Walks into the well connected organization it is today.
As a result of that first campaign All Walks has launched the Centre of Diversity at Edinburgh College of Art and has gone on to create many more initiatives.
And with lectures up and down the country, engaging student designers with the idea of conscious choice, emotionally considerate design and why designing for a range of body shapes is, in these difficult times, a lucrative business proposition, we know we can look forward to more high profile Body Conscious designers like Mark Fast, in years to come.
“Over the years,” say’s Mark, “I have been privileged to work with some of the most beautiful and shapely women in the world and it is true to say that even the most beautiful (by any standards) have moments of doubt and insecurities.
As a designer it is very important to deliver the technical aspects a “look” and a quality of “make,” I also want to make each wearer of my clothes feel empowered and affirmed. I want to celebrate women and make them feel good in my clothes.
" I had the most fantastic compliment the other day when a supermodel mentioned to me that she was feeling tired and a little down and just by putting on one of my FASTER range she felt energised and invigorated."
And more power to you Mister Mark Fast, for such stylish action. We know you will continue to win awards, but we hope this All Walks award has a special place on your studio shelf. We think you have heart and we think that you, like us, believe that Inclusivity and Diversity equals Body Confidence.
Read more...
Full list of the Body Confidence Award winners.
Caryn’s piece on why the awards are important for every one, for The Huffington Post.
Susie Orbach’s Guardian Feature on the Body Confidence Awards.
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Post by Caryn Franklin
Images individually attributed
Editor Charlotte Gush
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Caryn Franklin Co-Founder Former fashion editor and co-editor of i-D Magazine for 6 years in the early eighties, Caryn Franklin has been a fashion commentator for 29 years. She presented the BBC’s Clothes Show for 12 years and BBC’s Style Challenge for 3 years as well as producing and presenting numerous documentaries for ITV on designers including Vivienne Westwood, Philip Treacy and Matthew Williamson. Working in education throughout her career as external assessor and lecturer in colleges like Central St Martins, London College of fashion and Royal College of Art, she is also an ardent fashion activist and has co-chaired the award winning Fashion Targets Breast Cancer for 15 years and proposed the London College of Fashion Centre of Sustainability and is its ambassador. Follow Caryn on Twitter: @Caryn_franklin |
All Walks “Plus Size” model Laura Catterall covers French Cosmo
Former All Walks model Laura Catterall has covered French Cosmopolitan's April issue. Her curves are beautifully displayed by the 50's style shoot. All Walks is proud to have introduced Laura to London designer Mark Fast in 2010; he subsequently booked her to walk in his catwalk show alongside other "plus size" models, including Hayley Morley.
The shoot in French Cosmo shows Laura's stunning feminine curves, and emphasizes her healthy, beautifully toned athletic limbs:
The French seem to be leading the way in terms of featuring curvy, "plus size" (not a very helpful term) models prominently; with French Elle having used Tara Lynn on their February cover, describing her as "The Body," a title formerly used to describe super model Elle Macpherson.
Here at All Walks we are aware that magazines have often featured curvy models in a way that makes them seem like a novelty, rather than as beautiful women whose figures more closely resemble those of the general population. However, putting such beautifully curvaceous models on the cover of the magazine shows an acceptance that they are aspirational figures who can sell fashion (magazines) as well as any 'standard' size model.
We say, "Continuez le bon travail!"
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Words by Charlotte Gush
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Charlotte Gush is a freelance fashion writer, blogger and editor, as well as the Online Commissioning Editor for All Walks. She has previously spent 6 months working for All Walks at the London office as a social media, marketing and production intern. Charlotte writes a fashion, street style and personal style blog, CAVACOMA.com, with a dedicated Facebook fanpage here, and a Twitter account @CavaCharlotte |
Our London Fashion Week Highlights
This season, for the first time since our launch in September 2009, we decided not to produce a high-profile industry campaign during fashion week. The reason for this is that we have been focusing all of our attention on the educational side of our work, helping to shape the mindset of future industry players - designers, writers, image makers - towards emotionally considerate practice. To this end, All Walk's founders Caryn and Debra will continue to tour the country, speaking to students at university level about the All Walks way.However, the spirit of All Walks has continued to have a presence on the catwalks during fashion month, and I would like to share these highlights with you. At All Walks, we love to see the people we work with doing really well, and this London Fashion Week has certainly made us proud.
You may have read in a prevous post, written by our Editor Charlotte Gush, about one of the original All Walks pairings, of designer Alexandra Groover and model Lucy Freeman, reuniting this season to make a film together for London Fashion Week.
I was also pleasantly surprised when I received an email containing the images below, of William Tempest's All Walks model Laura Catterall walking in the Elena Miro show in Milan, where she is channelling the perfect Mad Men silhouette with her femme fatal curves:
Coming back to the UK from Milan, spreading the spirit of our campaign at London Fashion Week was All Walks model Valerie Pain, who walked for Fyodor Golan, this year's winner of Fashion Fringe. Pain, the amazingly stunning 70-year-old model, told me that when she attended the casting, she walked in and, on sight of the samples, announced to the casting agent, "I'm not going to waste your time, they won't fit me."
However, the designers were so impressed by her that they redesigned an outfit and fitted it to Valerie's own body shape so that they could have her walk in their show. And just look how confidently she walks and how beautiful she looks in her show-stopping outfit in the short film, below:
To watch more, visit the Fashion Fringe section of the LFW website.
Until next time, I would like to leave you with this thought:
Whatever shape you are, whatever age you are, the women in this post show that being unique is the most beautiful trend to have emerged from fashion week, and I hope you can use this inspiration to embrace your individuality with pride.
Images courtesy of 12+ UK Model Management
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Post by Michael Williamson
Michael is a designer, stylist, blogger and an integral member of the All Walks team, having been with us from the very beginning. Check out his blog, Safety-Pin Charm, to keep your finger on the pulse of all things fashion - especially london based. Follow Michael on You Tube and on Twitter @mwfrost
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Editor Charlotte Gush, on Twitter @CavaCharlotte
All Walks All Talks Fridays Chat:
Something to do for Monday!
Look what we have just found out on Twitter!
All Walks Beyond the Catwalk Designer Stella McCarteny,
Has just Tweeted A few Moments ago:
if anything is to go by this years Halloween Decorations we Just cant wait to All have a Walk dow to stella'S
M.W
NEW IN LOOK MAGAZINE!
Fabulous new pictures of our gorgeous models Laura Catterall & Hayley Morley. This weeks LOOK magazine has a beautiful main fashion story on them both shot by John Adams The spread includes interviews with both girls and talks about them being the New curvy Supermodels. We of course agree that these 12+ UK girls definitely arethe curvy models of the moment!
REPORT BY M.W
IMAGES COURTESY OF 12+UK AND LOOK