Fashion students team up with major sports brand for design project

Fashion students at the University of South Wales have collaborated with Size? to come up with a new streetwear clothing range for the high street brand.

Students across three courses – Fashion Design, Fashion Promotion and Fashion Business & Marketing – worked in teams to launch a new brand in the outdoor-inspired streetwear category, and consider how to bring it to market across a range of channels.

This year’s brief marked the third year of USW collaborating with Size? as part of its Syllabus project, which aims to nurture emerging talent in the fitness fashion industry, and provided the opportunity to bring the Fashion courses together for the first time.

The project saw the second-year students carry out research into Size?, its customer base and design philosophy, as well as its competitor brands and any gaps in the market, to create their capsule collections.

Fashion Design students Lucy Trinder, from Ireland , and LeAndre’ West-Kuudzadombo, from Leeds, worked together on their brand, Cause a Riot, which is inspired by street art and bold colours.

Lucy said: “We were looking for something that would suit a new genre of customer. We’d seen that a lot of people have to compromise colour for quality, or that sportwear can be very basic and plain – especially for skateboarders, which is the group we focused our designs on.”

LeAndre’ added: “We loved being able to explore new areas as designers, and it was great to see all of our work come together. Having such a focused brief and being able to work with such a well-known brand was so enjoyable.”

Fashion Promotion student Alice Searle, from Salisbury, teamed up with Fashion Design students Valley Phillips, from Essex, and Stella Fisher, from Carmarthen, to create Venture – a retro-inspired outerwear brand.

Alice said: “The idea for the name came from our research into outdoor brands, and we added a vintage twist to the pieces. We’re really pleased with how well we worked together and produced a great campaign. We held a photoshoot where everyone got involved – including our friends, housemates and fellow students, which was so much fun.”

Fashion Promotion students Charlotte Driscoll and Harley Morgan worked with Fashion Design students Rosie Protheroe and Dona Hendalage, as well as Fashion Business & Marketing student Darci Maguire, to come up with their brand, Croak.

Rosie said: “We all worked really well together, communicating and learning from each other to make a very cohesive group. We designed a range of garments including a windbreaker jacket, hoodies, T-shirts and long sleeve tops, trousers, jeans, parachute pants, and accessories such as hats, keyrings and a backpack.”

Charlotte added: “Harley came up with the name, which is a little ‘out there’ but we think it makes our brand unique and distinctive. It gave us a big scope for design, and we also really enjoyed creating the social media content for the campaign.”

The student teams were also presented with awards for their work on the project, with the Research and Development award going to Pivot; the Creative Direction award being won by Cause a Riot; the Design & Range Build award going to Traverse; and the Overall Award for Excellence being picked up by Croak.

Simon Newby, Brand Marketing Manager at Size?, said: “Size? Syllabus sets out to identify, nurture, and offer a platform to budding creative talent in its early stages, to help it flourish and we’ve activated numerous briefs with USW over the past few years.

“These briefs allow us to deliver industry level insights and knowledge sharing and gives the students the ability to work on briefs from the world's biggest streetwear brands. As well as the students working towards academic targets, they have the opportunity for their campaign ideas to become a reality, as well as career opportunities with us further down the line. 

“We have seen a fantastic range of work from the students this year and the way they’ve approached their research, design work and marketing across the groups has been excellent.”

Emma Jones, Course Leader for Fashion Promotion at USW, added: “This collaboration has really put the students through their paces, as they have had to come up with a pricing structure, minimum order quantities and so many other aspects of designing a brand for the commercial market. They have been taken out of their comfort zone and been challenged to think differently, which has given them an incredible opportunity to mirror the industry while providing ideas and learnings for Size? to take away too.

“At USW we are passionate about bringing the industry into the curriculum, and giving our students a genuine understanding of what they need to do to be successful in such a competitive landscape. I’m immensely proud of what they have achieved and look forward to continuing our fantastic partnership with Size? in the future.”