JCA | London Fashion Academy announces a partnership with Lone Design Club, RCGD Global (Red Carpet Green Dress) and Graduate Fashion Foundation for its newly launched, scholarship-supported, Sustainability-focused MA Course in Fashion Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation.
Supported by Vogue Italia, the unique programme seeks to identify, curate and launch the very best sustainable designer-entrepreneurs from across the UK.
JCA | London Fashion Academy sets itself apart from other educational institutions by offering higher education with practice based learning, London Fashion Week Show’s and retail opportunities as its core. The JCA is determined to create the next wave of fashion designers by consciously supporting their businesses from the day they arrive at the Academy. With its stellar line-up of partners, today the JCA launches the world’s first Sustainability Launchpad and Design Entrepreneurship Capsule.
Leveraging the success of its MA Design Entrepreneurship programme that launched a number of exciting new designers, the JCA has created a scholarship to help kick start the Launchpad. Supported by media champion Vogue Italia and in partnership with Graduation Fashion Foundation, sustainability organisation RCGD Global, founded by environmentalist Suzy Amis Cameron, and the UK’s fastest growing retail pop-up specialist, supporting sustainable and independent brands: Lone Design Club.
With government funding for UK applicants, funding for global scholarships and the resources made available through the partnership, the programme is seeking to attract the very best sustainable design talent that will be supported to develop a commercially viable brand, create and manufacture its first collection, be launched at London Fashion Week and be immediately available for purchase at Lone Design Club.
With a clear focus on sustainable materials, business models and creative practice, the debut eco-conscious MA programme has sustainable design and enterprise creation as its distinctive central feature. Through this programme, learners (designated by the JCA as designer-entrepreneurs) will identify and develop their brand, by making their founding collection. Crucially the programme will purposefully embrace an eclectic mix of design paths, whether that be men’s, women’s, unisex, or indeed fine tailoring, red carpet couture, street, bridal, lingerie, accessories or footwear.
The JCA’s scholarship partners, each an expert within their respective fields, will support this select group of designer-entrepreneurs in their early development and give them the very best pathway to success. Meet the coalition of partners coming together below to give this unique group of designer-entrepreneurs the very best start to their professional careers:
JCA | London Fashion Academy : Education Partner
The JCA opened its doors in Mayfair in September 2021 and quickly became regarded as ‘revolutionary’ by government ministers and ‘design trailblazers’ by industry commentators, the Academy has been built with one sole purpose: to support and accelerate emerging designer entrepreneurs in the ultra-competitive world of fashion. To do so, the school tailors the learning of each individual to the discipline they are interested in rather than offering an homogenous curriculum to a large number of students. In November 2022, the JCA opened a second campus located in the heart of West London. Boston Manor House is dedicated to unearthing and sculpting the next generation of craft pioneers. Designer-entrepreneurs on the Sustainability-focused MA Course in Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation will be based at the JCA and have access to its unrivalled design facilities.
Lone Design Club : Retail Partner
Lone Design Club (LDC) is a retail concept founded by Rebecca Morter in May 2018 that brings together emerging ethical and independent fashion and lifestyle brands to shape the future of retail through immersive and agile pop-up experiences. As a champion of sustainable design, LDC provides designer entrepreneurs with a platform to showcase their collections in prime retail locations and connect with customers who share their values. In keeping with its mission, LDC is proud to be the official stockist of the debut collections of all sustainable designer-entrepreneurs from the MA Course in Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation (2023/24). The collections will be featured in a pop-up store timed to coincide with the graduating class’s London Fashion Week show in September 2023.
RCGD Global : Thought Leadership Partner
RCGD Global is a women-led global change-making organisation working from ‘moment’ to movement, bringing global cultural sustainability to the forefront of conversation and action within the fashion and design world. Under the leadership of CEO Samata Pattinson, RCGD Global will provide thought-leadership, and its community will deliver workshops on sustainable design to the 2023/24 cohort of MA Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation learners for their sustainability capsule collection.
The JCA launched its inaugural MA cohort during London Fashion Week, September 2022. Achievements within 6 months of launch include editorial coverage for every designer across international and local markets; front page magazine covers for two designers; introduction of one designer’s work to Her Majesty the Queen Consort; Best New Designer at the Northern Fashion Awards; tour commissioning by a globally-renowned musician; nomination for a national magazine Student Footwear of the Year award. The JCA aims to emulate and exceed these successes with its 23/24 cohort of Sustainability-focused designer-entrepreneurs, working with its highly regarded partners to provide opportunities that go above and beyond any which an MA programme has previously offered.
Beside helping more designer-entrepreneurs get the education and support to become successful entrepreneurs, the scholarship will open doors by providing finance and professionally ‘incubating’ the aspiring designers. All designer-entrepreneurs will establish themselves as freelancers or micro-SMEs in their first term at the JCA and will be encouraged to be commercially enterprising from the outset.
Recruitment for the course will be based on academic and creative potential assessed through prior qualifications, portfolio, and academic interview. A shortlist of designer-entrepreneurs will be judged and the scholarships awarded by a panel comprising Stephen Smith – JCA CEO , Ha Smith – JCA Director of Incubation, Mark Eley – JCA MA Course Leader, Samata Pattinson – RCGD Global CEO, Rebecca Morter – Founder and CEO of Lone Design Club, Lois Clark, Co-Founder and Managing Director of In+Addition Communications, and Sara Maino, Vogue Italia Talents Lead.
Editor’s Notes:
JCA I London Fashion Academy announces MA Course in Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation (Sustainability Capsule 2023/24).
JCA I London Fashion Academy will offer Scholarships worth at least £3000 to each awarded recipient.
The Scholarships will be selected by a judging panel consisting of: Stephen Smith – JCA CEO , Ha Smith – JCA Director of Incubation, Mark Eley – JCA MA Course Leader, Samata Pattinson – CEO of RCGD Global, Rebecca Morter – Founder and CEO of Lone Design Club, Lois Clark, Co-Founder and Managing Director of In+Addition Communications and Sara Maino, Vogue Italia Talents Lead.
Further information on Graduate Fashion Foundation’s involvement in the partnership to be unveiled in Spring 2023.
More information on the MA Sustainability Capsule course syllabus available here: www.jca.ac.uk/sustainabilitycapsule
To apply for the JCA MA Course in Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation (Sustainability Capsule 2023/24) click here: www.jca.ac.uk/apply-now
ABOUT JCA
JCA | London Fashion Academy is a pioneering fashion school and professional incubator founded by Prof. Jimmy Choo OBE and Mr Stephen Smith. It opened its doors in Mayfair in September 2021 to play a pivotal role in re-galvanising London’s fashion community post-pandemic and has been established as Mayfair’s international hub for all those interested in design and luxury brands. Taking inspiration from and disrupting the boundaries from the likes of the V&A, Royal College of Art, Parsons New York and Somerset House, the facility will be more than just an educational academy, providing contemporary co-working spaces for fashion start-ups, gallery and exhibition space and a calendar of networking and fashion-focused events.. Since its opening in September 2021, the school has helped many students launch their projects, like Melissa-Kate, a Master’s student invited to show at the Northern Fashion Week, and Scottish mature student Paul McCann, who has launched his label whilst in the first-year of his degree.
Students and emerging designers can discover more information about the JCA via its website at, www.JCA.ac.uk and via its Instagram handle, @JCALONDON
ABOUT LONE DESIGN CLUB
Lone Design Club is cutting through the noise of a saturated fast‐fashion market and shaking up the conventional shopping experience by challenging traditional retail offerings in the UK and internationally. Presenting a new immersive shopping experience, LDC is blurring the lines between consumers’ online and in‐store purchasing experiences.
PREMIUM – ETHICAL – IMMERSIVE
Instagram – @lonedesignclub
www.lonedesignclub.com
ABOUT RCGD GLOBAL
RCGD Global is a women-led global change-making organisation working from ‘moment’ to movement, bringing global cultural sustainability to the forefront of conversation and action within the fashion and design world. Celebrating its 10th year of the Red Carpet Green Dress campaign initiative at the Oscars, RCGD Global was initially conceived as a design contest by Suzy Amis Cameron (actress, environmental advocate, and author) when faced with the lack of ethical fashion choices while attending global premieres of husband James Camerons’ ‘Avatar’. The organisations’ work has since developed to include collaborations with global and small independent brands, partnerships delivering sustainable design solutions such as regenerative materials, educational work with the emerging design community – including workshops, internships and work experience, and international design contest initiatives. Alongside a consultancy offering, RCGD Global’s R & D division delivers thought-leadership work for the industry, working with leading institutions such as Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge and University of California, Berkeley.
RCGD Global works to draw attention to the importance of more sustainable practices in the design world and to be part of bringing those solutions to a global, culturally diverse market. Leading fashion houses including Louis Vuitton, Vivienne Westwood, Armani, Elie Saab, Swarovski, Christian Siriano, Bulgari, Dunhill and Reformation have joined the campaign to create sustainable red carpet wear. Celebrities including Sophie Turner, Laura Harrier, Emma Roberts, Marlee Matlin, Danielle MacDonald, LaKeith Stanfield, Camila Alves, and Naomie Harris have joined the campaign as representatives of its Oscars red carpet green dress initiative. RCGD Global’s work has been featured in VOGUE, Vanity Fair, W Magazine, People, The Hollywood Reporter, WWD, Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Refinery29, The Guardian, ELLE, LA Times, The New York Times, Business of Fashion amongst others, across over 100 countries.
Helmed by CEO, Samata Pattinson, a prior winner of the Global Design Contest in 2011 with over a decade of experience, Red Carpet Green Dress campaign unveiled its rebrand to RCGD Global in 2022, to fully encompass the multitude of spaces that the organisation exists in with a focus on four core pillars:
> Collaborating with respected and mainstream platforms to foster sustainable conversations and action
> Developing accessible sustainable design solutions which create real effective change
> Being part of creating a more socially fair, equitable and representative industry
> Helping to find language to create change
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Learn More
@redcarpetgreendress
rcgdglobal.com
With love,
FWO
