Karen Millen fashion school wins Times Higher Education award
16 October 2009 UCA has received a Times Higher Award for a project set up to offer opportunities to young people affected by HIV in South Africa.
The resulting fashion school – The Gateway School of Fashion was led and coordinated by staff at UCA Rochester along with leading alumnus, Karen Millen OBE.
The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) winners were announced at the gala awards dinner on 15 October at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Park Lane. More than 600 entries were submitted for the 18 different award categories.
The award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts was picked up by UCA Rochester’s Sheelagh Wright and Karen Millen who have led the project along with the Hope HIV charity and the Project Gateway in South Africa.
The University was represented at the awards evening by Vice Chancellor Professor Elaine Thomas along with Governor Jennifer Glastonbury and members of the University’s executive along with Hope HIV UK Director Mark Glen. Karen Millen and Course leader Sheelagh Wright collected the award.
Judge of the award professor Phillip Esler, former chief executive of the arts and humanities research council, (AHRC) said: “UCA’s work with the Gateway School of Fashion brilliantly reveals how the arts can change the world for the better.”
Karen Millen said: “I am extremely excited and very proud. This award will help get recognition for what we are trying to achieve at a fitting time as we evaluate the project and feel that we can reflect on the pilot scheme and put a long term structure in place.
“We will spend the next year focussing on the long term future of the project. Putting a solid plan into place and securing our financial needs to ensure that all of the efforts and investments made will come to fruition and result in giving these young people a future to be proud of.
Project coordinator Sheelagh Wright said: “The project has provided UCA staff and students a great opportunity to work together in developing a unique course. To have an idea is easy but to make it happen can only be achieved with the support of many people. UCA has provided the essential funding to enable the staff to be part of this project.
The University was also shortlisted for the Outstanding Contribution to Leadership Development for its work with the Forum for Organisational Learning and Development.
Vice Chancellor Professor Elaine Thomas said: “It is a testament to the hard work and commitment of our staff that we were shortlisted in two areas that are relevant to our progress and aspirations as a new specialist creative arts university.”
THES awards were presented by the host of the ceremony, television presenter and comedy writer Clive Anderson.
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The higher education representative body GuildHE congratulates the University for the Creative Arts for winning a coveted award at a ceremony in London last night.
UCA, one of Europe’s leading art & design institutions, swept up the Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts at the event attended by over 1,000 people from the HE world, including the Higher Education Minister, David Lammy.
Commenting on UCAs success, GuildHE Chief Executive, Alice Hynes said :
“The THE Awards are like the Oscars of higher education, and competition to win one gets tougher every year. GuildHE is delighted and proud to see one of its members join the winners circle and extends warm congratulations to UCA staff for this significant achievement”.
The Award went to UCA for a project set up to offer opportunities to young people affected by HIV in South Africa.
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A 20-foot container full of fabrics donated by top UK fashion labels has set sail for a fashion school in South Africa set up by designer Karen Millen for fashion students affected by HIV.
Despite charity fundraising being down some 60%, high street names and designers including Oasis, All Saints, and Jenny Packham have donated fabrics towards the fashion school which is a project of Africa based charity HOPE HIV.
The project began when Karen Millen, scheduled a series of meetings to raise funds for her fashion school which opened in Pietermaritzburg near Durban in 2007. The managing director of Oasis said that due to the recession, the store could not give any money to the project, but could support it with a pallet of fabrics from the company’s warehouse.
The pledge led Karen to meet with other leading designers and stores to ask if they would match the Oasis pledge. The result, some few months later is a container of fabrics with an estimated retail value of £15,000.
The container, some 20 foot long holds over 200 rolls of fabrics including a mixture of cottons, linings, wools, jersey, printed silks, and silk chiffon that has a retail value of around £20 per metre. Also included in the shipment were several boxes of buttons and zips.
Donations of fabrics have not come from the chains themselves but from their leading designers and managing directors.
Karen’s former business partner Kevin Stanford, who now heads up fashion chain All Saints donated clothes which Karen since sold to friends and family raising £3,000 which has covered shipping and transportation costs for the fabric.
The MD of Karen Millen UK, and fabric merchants Misan Associates have also pledged material for the school.
Picking up the fabric from different locations initially posed a problem, however a van was loaned by All Saints and driven by Karen’s PA’s father. Another van was also donated to the project by the shipping company.
UCA Rochester Fashion technician Maxine Munn waves off the container on its way from Ashford to Felixtowe
Local company Promax Logistics donated the transportation and storage of the fabric from Ashford to Felixtowe completely for free and gave significant time and effort to the project as well. Maxine Munn, Fashion Technician at UCA Rochester met with Director, Paul Withers and Bill Bosman of Promax Logistics in Ashford, Kent to see the container leave for Felixtowe. She said: “It was so exciting seeing the fabric on its way.”
Karen Millen said: “This is a prime example of how giving to charities is not just about giving money, but also about people’s time, commitment and dedication.
“Starting this project has given me a great deal of satisfaction and what’s even more satisfying is that others are keen to help and show the same enthusiasm it takes to make such things happen.”
The shipment aboard MSC Lausanne left Felixstowe on 15 June and is due to arrive in Durban in the first week of July where it will be met at Durban Docklands by representatives of the school in Pietermaritzburg.
In 2007, the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) at Rochester teamed up with former student Karen Millen to provide teaching and funding for the project.
UCA’s Sheelagh Wright who is also Karen’s former tutor said: “The fabric donated is of a very high quality and will provide the school with enough material for at least a couple of years.
“Despite the chips being down, the fashion industry, the University and many generous third parties have come together and have made the shipping of this fabric possible.”
Each year the Karen Millen Gateway School of Fashion offers 15 fashion students an opportunity to learn their trade. Graduates of the one year programme vie to win one of six places at the school’s own fashion label which designs and makes clothes to sell locally. Two students are also given work running a shop attached to the school.
Karen Millen graduated from the University’s forebear the Medway College of Art and Design in 1981. Her fashion business grew to include 130 Karen Millen stores internationally. Since selling her chain in 2004, Karen now dedicates a substantial amount of time to her two chosen charities, the Hope HIV fashion school and Teens Unite which cares for young people from 13 to 24 suffering life limiting illnesses.
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Karen Millen returned to UCA Rochester to attend a seminar exploring the role of the creative industries in international development and the Gateway School of Fashion in South Africa that she has been instrumental in setting up.
Sheelagh Wright, Fashion Management Course Leader presented ‘Fashioning Hope’ a talk about the school in Pietermaritzburg, near Durban for designers affected by HIV. The school was set up by the charity HOPE HIV who approached fashion designer Karen and her former tutors at UCA Rochester in 2006 to set up the school.
Sheelagh Wright said: “The project has seen its first year of students graduate from the school. Each year 20 design students are accepted to the course. It’s been fantastic to be involved in the project.”
Karen said: “We wanted to maintain the project’s low profile in its first year to allow it to succeed, now the aim is to raise the profile of the school and help raise funds to help it to grow.”
She added: “It’s great to be back in Medway and to return to Rochester where I studied. It has changed a lot since I studied here. The Gateway school has been a really inspiring journey for me and I am really pleased that the University has been so involved.”
Dozens of staff members at UCA Rochester have been involved in the project, including several staff members who have taught courses at the school teaching a variety of disciplines including pattern cutting, drawing and embroidery. A presentation about the school was followed by drinks in the campus’ Zandra Rhodes Gallery and a chance to see an exhibition of photographs and films documenting the first year of the Gateway School of Fashion.
The day was a big success for the university’s press office with ITV Meridian filming a feature news item joined by local print and internet media all keen to meet Rochester’s most illustrious alumnus and hear about a truly inspiring project.
Press Officer Adam Ross said: “Karen and Sheelagh did the University proud with back to back interviews all throughout the afternoon, the work was well worth the effort with ITV showing a four minute feature on the school that week.”
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Fashioning Hope: the Gateway School of Fashion
The Gateway School of Fashion in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, opened in January 2008 with its first cohort of twenty two students drawn from a community badly affected by HIV/AIDS. The school’s director is Sheelagh Wright of UCA Rochester, and the students follow a foundation curriculum written by UCA staff.
The project is a unique partnership between fashion designer Karen Millen, the Mosaic Fashions group, the charity HOPEHIV, and the University for the Creative Arts. Sheelagh Wright will describe the school’s first year (during which many staff members from UCA Rochester have visited and taught units) and examine the role of creative pedagogy and ethical development in a globalised world.
These presentations will be followed by drinks in the Zandra Rhodes Gallery and a chance to see an exhibition of photographs
and films documenting the first year of the Gateway School of Fashion.
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January 2008 saw the grand opening of the Gateway School of Fashion
In attendance were the first student cohort with the Project Gateway chairman Jabu Mnculwane, course designer Sheelagh Wright, Hope HiV executive director Russell Davies, and Karen Millen.
BIZNEWS Press Release quote:
Project Gateway Becomes Fashionable
A new initiative aims to empower historically disadvantaged youth with fashion and design skills. The scene for a rags-to-riches story could not have been scripted better than by the tie-up between Project Gateway and internationally-acclaimed fashion designer Karen Millen.
Project Gateway is a church-based organization that pursues people-centered development through various interventions, while Karen Millen is synonymous with one of the world’s leading designer labels. The third partner is British agency Hope HIV that facilitated the R1,2 million funding for the equipment of the Gateway School of Fashion in premises at the former Pietermaritzburg Prison. It is here where students from disadvantaged backgrounds will learn the fundamentals of fashion design.
Unlikely as the tripartite arrangement may seem, it potentially is the launch pad for African designers to strut their stuff on the world’s modelling ramps. The vision was not unrealistic, according to Millen, who spoke glowingly of her experience at Gateway. “I’m totally overcome by the passion and the latent talent of the first intake of students and it would be a dream come true if one of the Project Gateway pioneers developed into an international designer,” she said.
To this end, Millen has set the students an ambitious goal — that of staging their own fashion show at the end of the year. “We’ve made it very clear that such a show would have to meet our own quality standards and that we would not compromise on our expectations,” she said.
Millen’s sentiments are shared by course designer Sheelagh Wright, the Director of Studies at the University for the Creative Arts in Rochester (UK), who has more than 30 years experience in teaching fashion and design at tertiary level. “We’ve designed a foundation course with an emphasis on basic skills and creative vision that we believe will allow students to find their own niche,” she said.
Wright’s biggest challenge in constructing a basic course was to find an appropriate language level. “We found it enormously challenging to simplify the language of instruction without compromising the content of the course material,” she said.
The course was designed to fit into existing training programmes elsewhere in the city, according to Di Milford, head of donor marketing and public relations. “The course, like most Project Gateway initiatives, complements projects already underway,” she said.
Milford explained that Project Gateway had aligned its operations with the Msunduzi Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) in an attempt to play a meaningful developmental role. “Resources are limited and our role is to seek out ways and means to co-operate and collaborate with other players in the city’s economy, and not reinvent the wheel,” she said.
For the same reason, Project Gateway actively sought out business involvement, according to Milford. “We have close relations with the Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Business and most of our strategic decisions are informed by research on sustainability and need,” she said. It was this research that pointed Project Gateway in the direction of a foundation course, specifically aimed at the poorest of the poor. “Fashion and design is an industry with traditionally high entry barriers, and hopefully this course will lower some of these hurdles and fast-track promising students,” she said. To this end, discussions were ongoing with the Durban University of Technology to look at ways for the Project Gateway course to facilitate access to further study.
Putting together the course also required considerable travel to the UK to consult with the University of the Creative Arts in Rochester, as well as Hope HiV. “In fact, training co-ordinator Asanda Magalela spent an entire month in Rochester, working with staff and students at UCA to familiarise herself with the way things are done there,” she said.
A total of 43 aspirant students from surrounding communities were invited to a three-day assessment workshop. The workshops involved sewing, design cutting and garment construction as well as theory to assess written English competency. From this group, 22 students were selected for the inaugural intake.
The Gateway School of Fashion project will be overseen by Hope HiV projects manager Selina Palm, in conjunction with executive director Russel Davies who is in charge of 45 projects in 11 African countries. The project has drawn wide praise from several quarters, including the Msunduzi Municipality and the PCB. “This is a wonderful initiative that, based on its partnership fundamentals, is certain to change the lives of people,” said PCB president Zinhle Sokhela. “I look forward to buying my first Gateway School of Fashion garment,” she said.
Derek Alberts
Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Business
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