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Lauren’s Bold Collection Wins Best Technical Student Range Award

Lauren’s Bold Collection Wins Best Technical Student Range Award

“Reflections of the street” were behind Lauren Straker’s range which scooped the Best Technical Student Range award at this year’s (2014) DUT Annual Fashion Show.

The Fashion Show started on Wednesday (1 October 2014), ending on Friday (3 October 2014) where the top 15 (out of 30) contenders battled it out on the runway for a win in the competition’s top five winning categories, namely: Most Innovative Range, Most Commercial Range, The Roy Holmes Award, Best Range on Show and Best Technical Student.

Straker walked away with a sewing machine, an adjustable dummy and adjustable industrial scissors. Mainly black in colour, Straker’s range used a lot of leather, which is heavy and stiff, with delicate knits; something she admitted to struggling with during the process of putting her collection together.

To sum it up in one sentence, Straker’s range was sexy, bold and “in your face”.
“My range was inspired by the reflections of the street. It’s all about the reflections of the pavement, all the weather reflections like rain which is where the influence of the blue comes in through the linings. We started (putting the ranges together) in June with things such as design and drawing and it was probably two months of sowing. The process (of putting the range together) wasn’t too bad, but I did have challenges, for example, when it came to pairing fabrics of the same weight.

Because I was using leather and knits, to try and make them sit the way I wanted them to was very difficult to manipulate. I had to interline some of my fabrics so I could make them stiffer,” she said.

Straker also had to pair her fabrics with prints that worked. How she solved that problem is very interesting. “Basically, I threw all my fabric into a pile. If it worked and looked good in a pile, I used it,” she said.

Starker has always loved puzzles, which is what led her into studying fashion which (also) involves sewing patterns together, similar to assembling a puzzle. For several years when she was younger, Straker made her own dancing costumes using hand sewing needles.

Straker was also announced as a finalist in next year’s Africa Fashion International (AFI) Fasttrack programme; a national fashion design development platform that aims to nurture and develop South Africa’s young and dynamic designers. In the programme, designers are offered an opportunity to “fast track” their careers through intensive mentorship, business development coaching and mentorship for future success.

For now, the aspirant designer plans to focus on the AFI Fasttrack programme. She is also hoping to study towards her BTech next year (2014). “From there, it’s open. I’d like to thank my parents who had to put up with my bad mood swings and arriving home very late and waking them up.

So far, I’ve found the industry to be challenging, it’s never as you see it (as a designer). You might think something is the best and in the end, it might not be seen like that by other people. Originally, I wanted to go into retail but as I’ve been doing my own range, I’ve been enjoying my own work so I think I might try that but maybe work at the same time for the experience,” she said.

-Sinegugu Ndlovu

Pictured: Lauren Straker alongside models wearing her range which earned her the Best Technical Student Range award during the finale of this year’s (2014) DUT Fashion Show held at the University’s Fred Crookes Sports Centre, DUT Steve Biko Campus, on Friday (3 October 2014) last week.

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