After Central St Martins, Craig Green Isn’t So Green

Central Saint Martins’ graduation show is a list of ones-to-watch in fashion. Nary a year passes without some or another of its graduates quickly becoming well known names, at least (at first) to industry insiders (2011’s all-star was Maarten Van Der Horst—Opening Ceremony is already a stockist). So who’s up next for entry in to the exclusive and sickly talented Saint Martins pantheon? Meet Craig Green.

“Bittersweet? More bitter that it has come to an end—I had quite a good experience here,” says Green, recapping his total six and a half years affiliated with the school (BA into MA). Yet Friday night’s runway held nothing but high notes for the budding talent. Green closed the show with a stirring, provocative menswear collection of simple-but-thought-through pieces, meant to reflect uniformity in both religion and the workspace. “It’s the idea of group mentality, groups in society—such as how a religious sect might have a specific way of dressing… you are set to be as one.”

Green’s jump off was interpreted through the construction of tunic-like shapes, some reminiscent of burkas and/or papal robes, in either cream or black (“light and dark, shadows,” as he puts it). He then added a series of tie-dyed prints—squares and rectangles where light projections on the mock-ups had “accidentally” missed. And while unintentional at first, those prints had to be painstakingly laid-out in Photoshop for production, as each section of each garment was made with a solo piece of fabric.

As for thegeometric accessories topping off the 17 looks, Green says, “I was in Naxos, Greece, and found these amazing postcards of porters carrying luggage. I love the structure on the body, the body on the body.”

Now that he has completed the course, Green is mum on the subject of the future. “If things happen, they’re meant to happen. You have to be realistic,” he says, charmingly. From a man who has taken home prizes from Bally, New Era and now L’Oréal, and who has impressed even the hardest observers with his affability and ethos, something is definitely going to come his way.

Once the show ended, Green and co. hit up Le Baron London, which hosted the show’s after-party with Grandlife New York and Motilo, a shopping social network based in London.