RENATA ESTEFAN
Fashion Folio 2012 - Files of Visual Research and General Work.
Renata Estefan moved to London in 2012 after being offered a place at Fashion Folio - CSM by the course-leader professor Patrick Lee Yow. During the program she was also taught by Elisa Palomino, head of Prints at Central Saint Martins and who has worked for eight years as head of studio at John Galliano and other great fashion houses such as Dior and Diane Von Furstenberg.
" Fashion Folio was a great and fundamental experience for me before going into a full time course at CSM. Fashion education in my country is not focused on the creative process but at the basic technical side of it. I couldn't even image what a sketchbook was or how it could be helpful as a designer to work on one. Now i am able to explore ideas deeply and come up with original creations. You can not come up with a whole referencial collection if you don't push your brain to the limit. And you definetly can not do that without an idea development process."
Before starting at Fashion Folio, Renata Estefan wrote for her BA final Project in Brazil a 200 pages book on the topic of visual language signs of communication. Connecting art and fashion, she wrote a minuncious study depicting and uncoding many of the successful and non-successful fashion creations inpired by emblematic art-pieces. Estefans' final pieces were inspired by brasilian Artist Almicar de Castro. At Fashion Folio Renata Estefan had the chance to take her project further and re-design her ideas for Amilcar Collection.
" Visual Language Book, written by Renata Estefan
Fashion folio Amilcar Project - A5 sketchbook
" One of the main things i learned at Fashion Folio was how to look into images. There was a very particular training for the eyes and the mind that would enable students to absorve and interpretate visual informations in order to create new visual informations that hasn't been seen before. And that is an importan thing to keep in mind: you can not become a reference if you are doing what has already been been done."
Interview Presentation for Graduate Diploma in Fashion 2012
"Students often come to me asking what does CSM wants, what is the style of work they want to see? And they often think they didn't get a place or wouldn't get a place at CSM because their style is not what the college is looking for. But I dont think getting a place at CSM is a matter of style at all. You look at the students final projects, at BA and at MA, and the similarities between them are not on style. You have all styles there. The similaritie is on the excellence of the work. So answering that: No, they are not looking for a particular style of work they are looking for a particular style of student which includes the ones who want to do whatever it is that they do excellently well."
All the images above are pictures of some of the work produced at Fashion Folio, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.