Favourite Designer from GFW 2010: Isabel Fishlock

By Isabella Stockwell

Images used with permission

 With icons of indulgent tastes either passing away or on the verge of a prison sentence, it’s time to renew the face of maximalism in the next generation of avant-garde eccentrics designers. Following in the paths of Meadham Kirchoff and Louise Grey, it won’t be long before Central Saint Martins graduate Isabel Fishlock is the next big thing in maximalist design. Having been spotted by some seriously big journalistic contenders at Graduate Fashion Week, which led her into the arms of Jimmy Choo and Paul Smith, Isabel’s first eponymous collection was certainly a feast of colour and texture that screamed to be noticed.
 Inspired by Tim Walker’s Vogue shoot of the Huli Tribe of the Papua New Guinea, who wear red, yellow and white tribal paint and accessorize their hair with feathers to look like a bird of paradise, Isabel created a collection that brimmed with excess. It was ‘the colours and effortless vibrancy of the images that make it magical’ and caught the attention of the designer. Isabel’s obsession with nature led her to delve deeper into the woods of this tribe.

 In the forest to which these tribesmen live, inhabits a bird after our own hearts; the Bower bird, which spends its days collecting beautiful objects to use as embellishments to its nest. It doesn’t care for the functionality of the item, only it’s visual beauty. Survival, in essence, is through beauty, much like the fashion industry itself. If beauty is the root to a designers survival, then Isabel is certainly about to bloom.
 It’s the very philosophy of collecting beautiful things that inspired Fishlock-who is an avid fan of David Attenborough- into creating such a heavily accessorized collection. ‘I wanted to create a world that I would like to live in. Like a dreamland that was filled with colour and flowers’, says Isabel, who describes her style as ‘airy fairy.’ 

 Juxtaposing velvets with tie-dye and block colours with chiffons to create a paradise of visual seduction, Isabel uses unusual objects, from bottle tops to medicine packaging, to display a Bower-bird-like approach to embellishment. ‘I wanted to have a collection that wasn't too serious because to me fashion isn't serious.  It's like dress up and playful’, declares Isabel, who is currently in fashion goggles with girlishly blonde hair and a vibrant stripy dress.‘I am a perfectionist when it comes to colours or finishings, but I'm definitely not strict in how the collection is created’, she continues. This perfection-cum-playfulness is what makes her designs stand out.

 Unlike some of her contemporaries, Isabel’s designs, although covered in contrasting details, seem weightless and as light as a feather. The models become as important as the clothes themselves, with tattoos only enhancing the details of her designs. This of course, is a promising sign for her next collection, as an assemblage of clothing that can make the wearer as beautiful as the garments, will always be sure to fly off the shelves.