SOHO UNVEILS OUTDOOR ART INSTALLATION WITH LONDON COLLEGE OF FASHION

As one of the world’s most vibrant districts, Soho is known for its diverse art and culture and this week unveils an exciting outdoor exhibition with works from ten students from London College of Fashion (LCF), UAL. LCF leads the world in fashion business, media and design education, and has been nurturing creative talent for over a century.

Following a project brief, ten students from the BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration course were selected. The course seeks to produce the next generation of innovative, multi-disciplinary image-makers and original thinkers. The ten illustrations celebrate the history of Soho through the eyes of the students and include bold vibrant street scenes, as well as themes of punk, music and fashion.

The 250ft outdoor exhibition is located on Berwick Street and Hopkins Street on the hoarding of a development site which will reveal ten new retail spaces and two restaurant opportunities in 2023.

The ten students selected to take part were chosen by a carefully selected panel including Simon Quayle Executive Director Shaftesbury and Lindsay Pentelow, Creative Director, School of Media and Communication, London College of Fashion.

Simon Quayle, Executive Director Shaftesbury PLC said: "Shaftesbury is delighted to be part of this initiative to support the emerging talent from this important creative course. Soho has long been renowned as a location for the creative industries, so this is the perfect place for the students to illustrate what Berwick Street and Soho means to them. This collaboration marks another chapter of our long-standing partnership with London College of Fashion, which has endured for over a decade."

Lindsay Pentelow, Creative Director, School of Media and Communication, London College of Fashion, UAL, said: "These bold and eye-catching illustrations capture and celebrate the history of this iconic street and its position in the centre of Soho, whilst also looking into the future of its development. This has been a fantastic brief and opportunity for London College of Fashion's highly creative and innovative BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration students. The illustrations are a perfect way to help celebrate the rich heritage of London College of Fashion in this area of London, at a time when we are also looking ahead to a new chapter in our story to our future home in Stratford when we open our doors in East Bank in September 2023."

For more information about this exhibition and Soho please contact [email protected] / [email protected]

For more information about London College of Fashion please contact the London College of Fashion, UAL press office: [email protected]

For more information visit ThisIsSoho.co.uk and follow @ThisIsSoho on socials for the latest updates.

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Notes to Editors: Student Bios

Liyun Li
Liyun Li is a fashion illustration student at London College of Fashion UAL. Currently based in London. She specialises in analogue and digital painting as well as digital 3D mediums. For the Berwick Street competition, she chose to celebrate how a diversity of cultures are respected and how they have thrived in Soho. As a Chinese student, she finds a nostalgic mood in Soho Chinatown and feels proud and touched by the fusion of the two neighbouring cultures. Therefore, she wants to highlight the intercultural communications between Britain and China in her work. In addition to that, she decided to imitate Risograph techniques digitally in response to the colour palette. She experimented with mark-making techniques and Riso printing to create a new visual language.

Liv Treweeke
I am an artist and fashion illustrator inspired by rich colour, texture and playful mark-making. I am constantly inspired by the diverse and eclectic range of fashion styling seen throughout London, often illustrating the people that cross my path. I have been drawing since I could hold a pencil and I try to maintain this child-like curiosity within my work today; seen through my use of oil pastel, coloured ink, crayons, and anything else within reach. The British pub is an iconic element of Soho’s culture, and it also plays a huge role in my relationship to the city. My wonderful grandparents introduced me to their favourite London pubs as a young girl, and the warmth I feel reminiscing these daytrips is very much present when visiting Soho today. There’s just something about the overflowing pavements full of chatter and assorted glasses that feels so inviting, it felt essential that I capture this.

Eleanor Parry-Hensley
Eleanor Parry-Hensley is a Fashion Illustrator from Manchester and graduated with First Class Honours from the London College of Fashion in 2022. Eleanor found a passion for art in her late teenage years after previously considering herself a Graphic Designer. Until recently Eleanor worked exclusively digitally but in 2022 expanded into the medium of painting and hopes to continue developing her analogue technique post-graduate. Eleanor’s work is inspired by the female experience and teen girl culture. Feminist theorists Linda Nochlin and Laura Mulvey inform Eleanor’s work and she strives to represent a female gaze in her art. “My illustration is inspired by Soho’s colourful and playful history, I wanted to pay tribute to the youth culture of the swinging sixties”.

Neda Yankova
My name is Neda, I grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria and am currently situated in London, after I graduated Fashion Imaging and Illustration at LCF, UAL. I have always been fascinated by visual arts and specifically illustration. Since I was a child, I have used illustrating as a form of communication, everything I observe in my surroundings is somehow translated in the worlds of my illustrations. Creating new realities from my current one is what I do in most of my work. Thus, my work is always heavily inspired by what I have seen, read, learned, and felt about different places. Everything contributes in one way or another to a beautiful illustration - every little detail. And that is why my artworks are always highly details, all carrying their own meaning and story. “Creating a story for Berwick Street inspired by real stories, was a very special moment, it made me feel a connection to the place like never before!”

Rosemary James
I'm Rosemary James, an artist and illustrator currently based in London. My process consists of layering different mediums (typically acrylic and watercolour paints, soft pencil and oil pastel) to create colourful and textured pieces which I then compose and complete digitally. I draw a lot of my inspiration from fashion and music, often listening to relevant music while creating to help translate the energy into my piece. I find that my inspiration and themes are broad and ever changing but I am currently enjoying creating portraits that explore the themes of fashion, rebellion, and subculture. I have recently created artwork for the jewellery and piercing brand Metal Morphosis and have graduated from the London College of Fashion, UAL where I studied Fashion Imaging and Illustration. “Soho's vibrant history of subcultural clubs and communities has been a great inspiration for me.”

Nerea Gómez Martín
The Berwick Street project struck me as an exciting chance to communicate Soho through my eyes, as it is now a central part of my London-based life. I feel very strongly about community as an essential informant of identity. The Colony Room Club represents what Soho can offer if you explore its rich history: finding your niche and forming your family of like-minded eccentrics, which inspired me to illustrate this celebration of friendship. As an illustrator, I aim to communicate what I learn and admire about cultures and communities around the world, as well as promote the peculiarities of the Spanish and Scottish cultures I was raised within. My work also often touches on how I understand the human relationship with the environment; exploring surreal re-imaginations of the human form intersected with the kingdoms of plants and fungi. I produce symbolic mixed-media work, focusing on the human figure both literally and more abstract. When working analogue, I layer combinations of dry and wet mediums and contrast materials which resist water with those that dissolve. My digital work usually starts out as a graphite pencil sketch, which I then bring to life with punchy primary colours in digital workspaces.

Elly Rodbert
I’m Elly Rodbert, a fashion imaging and illustration student currently based in South London attending London College of Fashion. I create my images digitally and I would call the main body of work that I do digital collaging and illustration. My illustrations are bright and stimulating, never leaving an inch blank and filled with tiny details. The main thing I love about imaging and illustration is the ability to capture the background, culture, and charisma of a person in a single image and creating characters within my art; this is one of my main focuses in all of my work. I have been commissioned for book covers, album covers and have collaborated with designers to create a campaign of illustrations for their collections. I’ve really enjoyed being part of this opportunity to make an illustration in response to Soho. I love the history and present life of London so much and feel privileged to have taken part in something that celebrates the city in such a beautiful way.

Annabel McLaughlin
I am currently studying Fashion Imaging and Illustration at London College of Fashion, now going into my third year. Creative media is something I have always been passionate about, being able to express yourself through art is so fulfilling. I mostly work in mixed media; my favourites include oil pastels and posca pens. For this project I chose to represent part of Soho’s vast community, in Soho Square a place that I feel can be often missed when thinking of Soho. A breath of fresh air within the busyness of the city with its own unique characters was the narrative behind the piece. Soho Square is one of my favourite places to visit, in which I have many memories of picnics with my friends, so I truly wanted to represent its welcoming character.

Katie Digan
Originally from Manchester, I am a London College of Fashion student focusing on illustration, animation, and design. I’m inspired by other people, their stories and their dreams and I try to dedicate my work to telling the stories of people who are ordinarily unheard, people who are working class, far away, and have lived unusual lives. I am meticulous with detail and take any opportunity to paint by hand, and while I produced this work digitally, I wanted it to show a certain hand-drawn quality. I drew on the history of Berwick Street’s market, its garment manufacturers, and tailors – I wanted to illustrate the tradespeople of this part of Soho literally building the area in their own way from the ground up, stitch by stitch, made precisely to measure. I saw this creative project as an opportunity to listen to the people who came and went through this area over the centuries and left their mark, it is their legacy that has made Berwick Street as vibrant as it is today and continues to inform the fashion that London is so celebrated for.

Heidi Pickover
I’m Heidi and I am a first-year student studying fashion imaging and illustration in London. I enjoy making digital collages, combining watercolour, photography, and pencil drawings. I love portraiture but recently I have gravitated towards illustrating domestic interiors. I also do a lot of pottery, so I like incorporating photos my pots into my art. I was inspired by iconic album covers and my personal music favourites to illustrate a record store’s walls in response to Soho being a famous location for music and vinyl.

Soho
Soho is the creative hub of London’s West End with a vibrant mix of independent and concept fashion stores, restaurants and bars. Shaftesbury’s Soho portfolio includes 39 shops and 31 restaurants, bars and cafes across several Soho streets including Berwick St, Broadwick St, Denman Street and Brewer Street.

Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury owns and manages a 16 acre property portfolio in the liveliest parts of London's West End. The portfolio comprises of restaurants, cafés, pubs and shops, extending to apartments and offices in the highly popular, sought-after and prosperous locations of Carnaby, Seven Dials and Chinatown, together with substantial ownerships in East and West Covent Garden, Soho and Fitzrovia.

All our properties are close to the main West End Underground stations, and within ten minutes’ walk of the two West End transport hubs for the Elizabeth Line, at Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street.

@shaftesburyplc shaftesbury.co.uk

London College of Fashion, UAL
London College of Fashion, UAL, leads the world in fashion business, media and design education. We’ve been nurturing creative talent for over a century, offering courses in all things fashion. With our philosophy of open and inclusive education, we encourage students to examine the past and question the present. To develop inventive, assertive ideas that challenge social and political agendas. And we give them the skills, opportunities – and above all, the freedom – to put those ideas into practice. As we look towards our move to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2023, we’re forging partnerships, opening up opportunities, and creating connections with east London’s schools, community and industry. Part of East Bank, a new culture, education and innovation development, our single-site campus will spark collaboration, experimentation, and inspiration – all under one roof. In doing so, we’ll continue to pioneer how we all consume and practice fashion. Use fashion business, media and design to shape culture, economics, and society. And through fashion, shape lives.