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Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant

Laura Tanzer calls for a change in fashion education

In 2017, the Business of Fashion released an article on the necessity of fashion schools to completely change their curriculum in favour of a more diverse skill set aligned with the merging of fashion and technology. This year’s lockdown forced the industry to prove their past efforts and put professionals to the test. Asking Fashion and Marketing graduate Laura Tanzer if students are prepared for digitalisation, she finds clear words: “Absolutely not!”

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Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer, Final Collection
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant

“Fashion and Marketing students did quite well at virtually presenting their ideas because they are generally interested in digital storytelling. But you could really tell the difference between them and other courses.”

The fashion show of the 2020 BA Fashion students was the first digital presentation in the history of Central Saint Martins. And while the official statement emphasised everyone’s resilience and reconsideration of what it implies to be a designer at the beginning of a new decade, its real challenge was the digital strategy required to communicate a collection beyond its design. “I was going through the list of people from our year,” says Tanzer. “Fashion and Marketing students did quite well at virtually presenting their ideas because they are generally interested in digital storytelling. But you could really tell the difference between them and other courses.”

Laura Tanzer’s start into the industry itself sounds like a story rather than reality. During her time interning in New York, she met a guy at a bar, who later asked her to start working as a dresser for the company he was employed at. Tanzer agreed and moved to Paris. She enjoyed the team’s enthusiasm, their approach towards fashion and their take on the multicultural present. One day, the guy-turned-friend talked to Tanzer about joining the design team. At 21, by the time Laura Tanzer enrolled in BA Fashion and Marketing, she had spent almost a year designing for the disruptive startup known as Vetements. “I don’t see myself as a designer, though,” she explains. “I like garment concepts and clothing heritage. That’s about it.”

Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer, Research and Design Development
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant

“The story that you build up around a brand is sometimes more important.”

Tanzer’s love for pop culture together with her experience from interning in brand strategy at the design agency 2×4 leads her to have a different view on fashion. “I love to understand people’s consumer behaviour and the psychology of why they would buy into a brand or follow somebody on Instagram. A brand’s communication to the consumer supports a design so if you know how to bring it to the mass, the design becomes irrelevant,” she explains. “The story that you build up around a brand is sometimes more important.” Hence, the talent’s final collection instead emphasised the story around it than the actual clothes. In fact, the five images being displayed on the website told two stories: first, that upcycled clothes can be fashionable, and second, it reflected an ode to the 100 people that inspired Tanzer along her way.

Piece of You, according to Laura Tanzer, was a back-up plan resulting from the lockdown. Because of the little opportunities left when one is forced to work with whatever is available within their own four walls, the young talent decided to turn from tailoring to textile. She asked 100 people to donate one piece of clothing and turned them into seven upcycled items. As the visual outcome was to focus on the story of the collection, Tanzer ensured to document every step rather rigorously. She says: “I already had an understanding of how things were supposed to look digitally and that you have to work with professionals. So it was important to me to collaborate with friends that are really talented and know how to display things.”

Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer, Research
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant

With regards to the university’s approach to the graduation show midst lockdown, Tanzer criticises the standardised solution across pathways. Limiting everyone’s work to the visual representation of five images created additional challenges as photoshoots were almost impossible to organise during the shutdown. It also took it as a given that all courses knew the criteria to produce as well as the marketing tools to communicate a digital collection. Besides, for students who decided to focus on storytelling, like Tanzer, this solution complicated the situation even more.

Knowing the cost necessary for a qualitatively high digital production, Tanzer does not believe virtual fashion shows could moderate financial inequalities between students. But she believes that the recent London Fashion Week provided a prime example of how tremendously brands differ in their digital delivery and a possibility to learn from the mistakes of the industry.

Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant

“I came back to CSM after a placement year for which I had done an internship at a creative agency, and I found myself questioning what I was doing at university.”

Currently, Laura Tanzer supports the Creative Director of Balenciaga and former Vetements colleague, Demna Gvasalia, as Creative and Research Assistant in Zürich. Looking back at her time at Central Saint Martins, Tanzer feels grateful for the people she has met. Still, she simultaneously stresses the urgency to adapt the curriculum according to the changes in the industry. “I came back to CSM after a placement year for which I had done an internship at a creative agency, and I found myself questioning what I was doing at university,” she shares. For the future, Laura Tanzer is considering starting her own agency and as such combine a strategic approach with sustainable innovation. In the meantime, as traumatizing as the lockdown has been for the BA graduates of 2020, it offers the opportunity for fashion schools to properly adapt to the digital future of fashion.

Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer, Lookbook
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant
Laura Tanzer, Press
Laura Tanzer: Why storytelling makes design irrelevant

Art Direction and Graphics by Katja Bruhin, Textile Collaboration by Julide Denktasli, Still Photography Wing To Fung, Photographer Phil Engelhardt, Photographer Sam Khoury

Special Thanks to Jessica, Ru, and Madelaine.