CSM MA 2026: Finding realness in an industry that feels like a scam

Luca Fabry @l_j_f_

Luca Fabry feels that “modern fashion often feels like a scam”, which is why his collection responds to what he perceives as a growing lack of depth and integrity in the industry, where appearance often takes precedence over lived experience. Seeking to restore material honesty, his work aims to subvert industrial processes to produce pieces that feel more artisanal. Tank tops, shirts, and dresses are constructed using ultrasonic welding, a technique borrowed from the automotive industry that bonds fabric without thread through vibration, heat, and pressure, resulting in seamless, minimal silhouettes. A thermo-bonding method is also used to invisibly join leather, enhancing durability while creating a moulded, rubber-like surface that retains a handcrafted quality. As he leaves education, Fabry finds the industry’s current lack of creativity and direction both unsettling and motivating, as emerging designers challenge the system. For him, the focus must return to the product itself, preserving fashion’s emotional power without sacrificing the physical integrity of clothing to the demands of social media spectacle.

Tito Crichton-Stuart @titocrichtonstuart

What happens in the blurred lines between dominance and submission? Tito Crichton-Stuart’s collection ‘American Sissy’, explores what it means to be an effeminate man within the framework of a preppy American fantasy. Drawing on lived experiences of dressing conservatively, ultra-feminine, or rigorously preppy, Crichton-Stuart treats clothing as both costume and performance. Unsettling shades of Americana collide with tactile knitwear techniques, including cables, ribs, and piqué stitches, questioning the conservative principles of prep while proposing a new language of expression. After six years in fashion education, he feels ready to step beyond academia, with hopes of gaining experience in luxury fashion before eventually forging his own path.

Adya Nevatia @ady_______a

With her work rooted in instinct, Adya Nevatia created leggings by drawing a freestyle leg pattern directly onto ribbed fabric, cutting it horizontally instead of vertically because it felt right. She layered them with inside-out socks, leaving open seams running down the front to form the outline of a boot, a gesture that “doesn’t make sense, but works.” Inspired by self-taught artist Bill Traylor, 1920s and ’30s sew-at-home catalogues such as Femme de la France, and the liberated spirit of 1960s fashion, Nevatia approaches techniques that are unfamiliar to her, like knitwear, grounded in the belief that there is no single correct way to construct clothes.

Ennis Finnerty Mackay @finnertymackay

Is addiction an intrinsic part of being a human? This is what Ennis Finnerty Mackay’s MA collection, ‘Perpetual Motion’, is trying to answer. Moving through the emotional states of control, euphoria, hysteria, and melancholy, his work situates the wearer within a continuous cycle of repetition and release. His fabrics are adorned with expired condoms discarded in London’s queer dark rooms and his tailored silhouettes are informed by three generations of alcoholic inheritance. As he prepares to leave education, he reflects on the industry’s relentless pace and the pressure to achieve instant independence after graduation. He also questions a system that treats a graduate collection as a final destination, advocating for a broader understanding of fashion education.

Macy Grimshaw @macy.grimshaw

Inspired by photographs of London street surfaces and her lived experience of the city, Macy Grimshaw transforms the overlooked textures of pavements and urban debris into garments that shift between recognition and confusion. From a distance, each piece appears familiar; up close, everyday objects emerge through superimposed imagery, prints, and hyperreal sculptural textures applied onto personal garments. The work channels an Alzheimer’s gaze, inspired by her grandmother Mauricette’s experience. As she completes nearly seven years of fashion education at Central Saint Martins, Grimshaw resists the pressure to define what comes next. Rather than subscribing to the industry’s obsession with constant newness, she embraces uncertainty, choosing to remain present and value the community she has built, confident that the next steps will unfold collectively.

Pola Wislicz @pola.wislicz

Pola Wislicz explores notions of the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘feminine’ through an outsider and queer lens. Drawing inspiration from the controlled aesthetics of 20th-century couture and vintage garments, she juxtaposes this tradition with the work of contemporary artists who interrogate femininity and the body. The collection features distressed, hand-embroidered textiles embellished with metal staples, referencing the work of artist Teresa Tyszkiewicz. As she leaves education, she feels both curious and slightly apprehensive about the realities of working in the industry. Wislicz remains aware of the industry’s fast pace and instability, and hopes to forge a balanced path that feels both fulfilling and impactful.

Ali Uzunkopru @aliuznkopru

Ali Uzunkopu’s collection looked at young and mature prolific women as reflections of himself in another gender, approaching contemporaneity through eclecticism. Polos and V-neck silhouettes function as everyday artistic uniforms, while sustainable nylon cigarette trousers and wide drawstring shorts introduce a sporty sensibility. Innovative joint-pattern techniques minimise cuts and seams, creating gender-neutral forms. After six years at Central Saint Martins, Uzunkopru describes leaving as both emotional and complex. As he builds his own brand, he is eager to see his work exist beyond education, motivated to create fashion rooted in longevity and a contemporary Turkish perspective that transcends gender and blurs cultural aesthetics.

Ivan Delogu Senes @ivan.delogu.senes_

Ivan Delogu Senes’ graduate collection, ‘Il peso della luna’ (The Weight of the Moon), investigates gravity as a physical condition and a cultural force. Silhouettes are carved and driven downward, with volumes that hang, hollow, and press upon the body rather than decorate it, positioning the torso, abdomen, hips, and pelvis as sites of containment and endurance that resist conventional notions of seduction. Layered textiles evoke ritual objects while a lunar, tonal palette of deep black, écru, ivory, and cold earth shades eliminates sharp contrast to foreground sculptural construction. Lunar cycles operate as a metaphor for the invisible rhythms structuring Sardinian women’s lives: labour, waiting, devotion, and generational resilience. Delogu Senes is motivated to build a culturally specific and globally resonant language, inspired by designers who construct entire worlds. While mindful of the industry’s commercial conformity, he seeks to challenge narrow ideas of elegance and ruralism.

Gemma Dolan @gemmadolan__

Responding to the hierarchy within contemporary high fashion that positions minimalist aesthetics, and their culturally masculine codes of seriousness as intellectually superior, Gemma Dolan challenges the idea that credibility and authority must be expressed through reduction. Instead, she creates space for the fullness of contemporary womanhood, proposing a wardrobe for women who are both pragmatic and provocative. Drawing on the style rituals of Irish adolescent nightlife, she employs fabrics often dismissed as lowbrow or overly feminine, including foiled mesh, animal print, and slinky jersey. As she leaves education, Dolan expresses concern about the scarcity of stable roles for graduates, yet remains energised by the resilience of independent designers reshaping the industry. She is particularly inspired by Pieter Mulier’s appointment at Versace, seeing in it a vision of a sexy, powerful, and playful sophistication that resonates with her own.

Zeina Issa @the.zeina

Syrian designer Zeina Issa redefines the image of the alternative contemporary Arab Muslim woman, a figure too often politicised and reduced to stereotype. The work explores the tension between external scrutiny and unapologetic self-definition, proposing a woman who honours her culture on her own terms. Metallic textures, UV-printed chainmail, and layered fabrics construct a maximalist visual language that reframes “Arab loudness” as power. Glitched keffiyeh prints, Syrian cross-stitch, and historical symbols collapse past and present, while hammered pleated chainmail introduces structure and reclaimed second-hand belly dancing belts embed sound and movement into the garments. Silhouettes shift between draped fluidity and sculpted volume, centring a woman who carries history visibly and defiantly in the present moment. Issa is eager to launch her own brand, inspired by independent designers who have remained true to their vision. She hopes to contribute to a fashion landscape that embraces maximalism and political clarity, foregrounding the complexity and vibrancy of her culture.

Jaeyoung Bae @jaeyouuung

The poetic gestures of Claire Denis’ Beau Travail characters, their moments of vulnerability, and the film’s sensual atmosphere, where military discipline coexists with intimacy, inform the visual language of Jaeyoung Bae. Bae develops garments through flexible interpretations of uniform, incorporating soft textures and subtle bodily exposure. Military elements are preserved but refined into relaxed silhouettes that prioritise comfort. Rather than framing masculinity as a fixed gendered construct, the collection proposes softness within disciplined composure. Post-uni, Bae is eager to apply the skills and sensibilities he has developed to the realities of the industry, while acknowledging concerns around visas and living costs. He hopes to secure a design role within a brand where he can meaningfully contribute to the development of collections.

Clay Hattam @clayhattam

Clay Hattam’s graduate collection, ‘Manhole Cover’, draws on the symbolism of the municipal object as both passage and shield. Peccadilloes are preserved in stodgy cloths, while awkward colour palettes reference the work of Australian figurative painters Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan. The hat operates as a McGuffin, an appendage to the coat without a head to fill it. As he leaves education, Hattam approaches the industry as a daunting yet compelling frontier, eager to explore its possibilities while holding onto the creative freedom he experienced during his studies and seeking to advocate for change where needed.

Arielle Uno @marachii_official

Arielle Uno imagines a speculative fashion ecosystem set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, after the withdrawal of the oil industry. As nature reclaims the land, garments undergo processes of rust dyeing and bacterial degradation, with poly-blend fabrics broken down, transformed, and reassembled. Industrial remnants from decommissioned oil rigs, including tyre tubing, are reworked through textile manipulation. Framing decay as a luxury process, the collection reveals resilience and femininity through controlled deterioration and meticulous craft, centring the empowerment of working-class women from the Niger Delta. Grunge textures intersect with the glamour of 1970s Nigerian rock culture, forming a language of post-industrial elegance rooted in personal and familial histories. Uno is inspired by experimental material initiatives such as Kering’s Material Innovation Lab and Le19M, as well as by creative communities in London, Lagos, and Berlin. She hopes to contribute to a fashion industry that embraces bold material experimentation while adopting a more holistic approach to design.

Benaissa Majeri @flirty.lollypop33

Benaissa Majeri’s work draws on British working-class life and the slow erosion of imagined futures. Informed by hauntological theory and the cinema of Lynne Ramsay, the collection translates emotional and social terrains into physical form, tracing melancholy, resilience, and unrest through anachronism and material tension. Florals and tartans are reinterpreted alongside metal-like surfaces created from bonded tin foils and treated knits, using industrial processes such as UV printing. Reconstructed garments, inverted upholstery fabrics, and shredded materials grant worn textiles renewed presence. As she leaves education, Majeri finds hope in her peers and their collaborative spirit, believing the industry is shifting toward more self-determined practices. She questions the necessity of the traditional seasonal runway model.

Pranjali Menaria @pranjali_menaria

Pranjali Menaria’s graduate collection critiques the fashion industry’s romanticised obsession with “going local” while her native Rajasthan risks becoming a byproduct of economic growth. As India ascends globally, she observes a more dystopian micro-reality, where capitalism erodes subculture into commodity. Using the life cycle of the native Aak flower, once sacred, now considered a weed, as a metaphor for cultural erosion, the collection unfolds across four stages: bloom, wilting, decay, and hope. Rooted in the philosophy of Ardhanarishwara, Menaria merges traditional Rajasthani menswear with fluid femininity, combining structured tailoring with drapes. Raw textures, including dabu mud-block printing and the endangered 500-year-old camel-girth craft, are contrasted with recycled glass and regenerative materials such as hemp, algae, and mushroom-based leathers. Through layered construction and soft sensuality, she questions what “local” truly means. The designer is excited for a post-uni community-based collaborations with artisans, aiming to challenge hierarchical models that position craftspeople as executors rather than co-creators within the design process.

Grey Buscemi @greybuscemi

Grey Buscemi examines the tension between appearance and reality. Drawing on the figure of the news anchor alongside the early history of aviation, the work contrasts polished, authoritative narratives with the precarious structures that support them. His technical research began with the invention of flight in the early 1900s, spending months studying vintage airplane collections and engineering archives. This process informed pieces such as a slotted plywood jacket, wing hairpins, and a wing shadow dress, crafted from materials used in or adjacent to early aviation, including paper, calico, and thin plywood. Deeply committed to craft and research-led development, Buscemi expresses concern that the industry’s accelerating pace risks compromising quality, and looks up to designers like Martine Rose, who operate on their own timelines, as a model for preserving integrity and intention.

Kai Ghattaura @kaighattaura

How does clothing transform when removed from its original cultural and material context? Kai Ghattaura reflects on post-colonial India and imagines nomadic communities reclaiming discarded British garments, such as the Nike Tech Fleece, and merging them with traditional adornment. Drawing on his mixed heritage, Ghattaura reinterprets the dhoti through engineered rectangular trouser constructions, removing conventional elements like zips, flies, and belt loops in favour of adjustable tying systems and antique buttons. The collection is constructed almost entirely from unsellable reject garments sourced through TRAID, foregrounding reuse as both material and political gesture. As he leaves education, Ghattaura expresses a desire to challenge the fatigue of contemporary luxury, arguing that fashion must become meaningful again rather than merely aspirational.

Mé Mé @shshsheep

Beginning with his sense of belonging to his hometown, Mé Mé translates the attitudes and everyday lifestyles of those around him into clothing that reveals the extraordinary within the seemingly monotonous. Referencing the humour-inflected work of street photographer and meter reader Liu Tao, Mé Mé combines artisanal fabric development, precise tailoring, and experimental cutting techniques. Through varied transparencies and a deliberate rawness, silhouettes shift with the wearer’s movement, allowing garments to transform in motion. As he leaves education, he reflects critically on the saturation of the fashion industry and the assumption that launching a brand is the only viable path for graduates. While acknowledging the value of his years at Central Saint Martins, he questions the sustainability of endless new labels and expresses interest in alternative industry structures, as well as the potential for growth within China’s fashion and art education landscape.

Dede Arisekola @dedemakestuff

Dede’s collection unfolds within an Afrofuturistic universe. The work examines romantic and emotional relationships through the lived experiences of the everyday African couple, with each look representing a distinct event, place, or moment across past, present, and imagined futures. Hand-made textiles,sculptural silhouettes, and crafted headwear embody emotional movement and transformation. Rooted in Pan-African consciousness yet speculative in vision, the collection frames love as both inherited history and futuristic possibility. As she leaves education, Dede feels energised by fashion’s constant evolution, embracing its pace and possibility while remaining confident that authenticity and genuine creativity will always carve space within an oversaturated industry.

Oli Clarke @oliclarke__

Oli Clarke was inspired by his four years working as an antique trader in Spitalfields. Immersed in the maximalist layering of objects embodied in market stalls, Clarke develops process-driven methods of making, using found materials and garments. His narratives evolve organically from what he discovers, making the old appear renewed and the new feel timeworn, until it becomes difficult to decipher what was sourced and what was constructed. For Clarke, the market operates as a blueprint for intergenerational exchange and shared storytelling. The designer remains grounded in the values shaped by his relationships with fellow traders, and is determined to preserve a human, honest approach within an industry that can often drift toward spectacle.

Thomas Uhlarik @tomuhlarik

Thomas Uhlarik’s collection is a bold, graphic wardrobe that plays with minimalism, modernised 1960s silhouettes, and shifted proportions, grounded in a geometric and unconventional cutting method developed through out-turned pleats that control volume. Features are imitated through repeated cuts of the same fabric, minimising seams and reducing garments to stripped-back archetypes that feel sharp and deliberate. Colour blocking and deceptive construction create pieces designed for movement – a collection in transit, made for the confident and the fleeting in the city. As he leaves education, Uhlarik is eager to push his skills further as a technical cutter and designer within the industry, while questioning the relentless pace of fashion calendars and the production of new content for its own sake, hoping instead for a slower and more considered rhythm.

Maxina Brewer @_maxina._

Yodea Marquel @_yodea