Mark Fast's 2009 London show cast three models between a UK size 12 and 14 and cost him two of his team
Mark Fast is on the London Fashion Week schedule again, seventeen years after the show that made his name. In September 2009 he cast three models between a UK size 12 and 14 for his spring summer 2010 collection, and his stylist and casting director were gone before it walked, with contemporaneous accounts differing on whether they left or were let go.
His managing director Amanda May said at the time that there was a team change and the studio was glad it had stuck to its vision, and that the point was to show that curvier women could wear the dresses. The knitwear is the reason it works: Fast learned on a machine nobody around him could use, cutting up swatches from a jumble sale to teach himself, and the label still runs on hand work rather than industrial knitting. He has since worked with Pinko, Christian Louboutin and Swarovski (@swarovski).
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The post, as it ran
01MARK FAST PUT THREE MODELS BETWEEN A UK SIZE 12 AND A 14 ON HIS LONDON RUNWAY IN 2009, AND LOST TWO OF HIS TEAM OVER IT.
02HIS MANAGING DIRECTOR, AMANDA MAY, CALLED IT A TEAM CHANGE AND SAID THEY WERE GLAD THEY STUCK TO THEIR VISION.
03THE CLOTHES WERE BODY CONSCIOUS KNIT DRESSES. THE COMPLAINT HE WAS ANSWERING WAS THAT THEY SUITED VERY TALL, VERY THIN WOMEN AND NOBODY ELSE.
04HE HAD ALREADY MADE A LOOK FOR ALL WALKS BEYOND THE CATWALK, THE DIVERSITY PROJECT STARTED THAT YEAR BY CARYN FRANKLIN, DEBRA BOURNE AND ERIN O'CONNOR.
05HE HAD TAKEN A DEGREE AND A MASTERS IN FASHION KNITWEAR AT CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS, AND SHOWED ON NEWGEN, THE BRITISH FASHION COUNCIL SCHEME.
06HE KNITS ON A DOMESTIC KNITTING MACHINE, THE KIND THAT SITS ON A TABLE, AND THE PIECES ARE MADE BY HAND IN HIS OWN STUDIO.
07THE SIGNATURE IS LADDERING, THE DROPPED STITCH KEPT AS A DESIGN, WORKED IN LYCRA BLENDED YARNS.