Fashion students from De Montfort University Leicester have put their creations on show at a special opening night of an exhibition challenging them to look at what punk and activism means today.
Prints of distorted Union flags, t-shirts with pithy slogans and challenging designs, cut-up and recycled clothing and even videos of sweary kids were among the items used to show what made students angry or issues they wanted to challenge in society, almost 50 years after the punk movement exploded in the UK.
Elena with posters and stills from her video
Activism, which runs at DMU’s Leicester Gallery until Saturday, shows an incredible range of creativity, inspiration and originality from students studying MA Fashion and Textiles, BA Fashion Design and BA Fashion Communications and Styling (FCS).
It is running in parallel to a major retrospective, celebrating the Leicester Punk scene, called Punk: Rage & Revolution, which is at the Leicester Gallery and Museum in New Walk and is also supported by DMU.
Jiayi Zhou with an outfit which includes plaited hair
Students had the opportunity this week to meet the public as well as fellow students and academics to discuss their work and tell the story behind their creations.
Elena Davies, final year FCS student, created a video and accompanying posters portraying kids dressed in punk gear carrying sweary slogans and running wild.
She said: “I am really happy with how the work has turned out. I wanted to do something that shocked the public today.
“If adults behaved now in the way they did in the 70s it wouldn’t be shocking. I wanted to do something in a new age of punk and ask the question ‘what would the new generation of punks be like?’.
So, I have kids aged between five and eight – they are all my cousins – starring in my video. They absolutely loved it! I’m reaslly happy with how it turned out.
“I want to go into photography or film or anything else to do with digital media. Throughout my final year I wanted to create something with a purpose and a meaning which also looked at sustainability and climate change. The Activision project allowed me to do that.”
Luke Harthen, from Cheshire, is studying the MA in Fashion and Textiles and produced radical clothing including a cut up and layered shirt which looked like a rib cage.
He said: “When I was given the brief I wanted to consider what a modern punk would do when it came to activism.
“I looked at queer mental health and how me and my queer friends are part of a community which offers support to each other.
“This project has been all about doing what I like. I think punk is all about freedom.”
Salima Kabango, BA Fashion Design final year student created a t-shirt looking at what she called the ‘stereotype of the strong black woman’.
“I was looking at the role of the strong black woman in modern society and what you have to live up to,” she explained.
“Sometimes we are not all strong and want to be ordinary women and get on with day-to-day life. Living up to that stereotype is hard. Sometimes you have to put on a strong face even though you are dying inside.”
Fellow final year student Ana Del Rio Mullarkey printed designs on to a leather cropped top made from off-cuts. She did the same with a pair of leather boots found in a charity shop, promoting sustainable fashion.
Using her Spanish heritage, Ana used the theme El Domingo – or Sunday – and the tradition of drinking coffee and eating Churros in Madrid.
She said: “I wanted to combine leather craft and innovation and try to push the boundaries. Leather design in fashion is usually footwear or handbags. I wanted to promote leather in fashion. It has properties, such as its malleability, that mean I can experiment more with the shapes.
“It is also sustainable and lasts for a long time. They say the most sustainable pieces of clothing are the ones already in your wardrobe.”
Callium Deacon created a t-shirt featuring pop-out clothes with foldable tags that were used in the past to dress 2-D doll figures.
He said: “I wanted to show the traditional roles of gender through clothing and also what children play with or are sometimes forced to play with according to the traditional genders.”
You can view Activism at the Leicester Gallery, Vijay Patel Building, up until Saturday 3 June.
The Punk: Rage and Revolution exhibition is at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery in New Walk until September.
Both exhibitions are free to enter.
Posted on Thursday 1 June 2023