For London natives who crave neon colors, cartoon imagery, and outrageous graphics, there is a fashion design label serving up the psychedelic clothing they covet. Fashion design school graduate Carri Munden is an active participant in London's burgeoning Neu Rave scene and has chosen the dance-music-inspired crowd as her target market for her label Cassette Playa. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive with large fashion design followings in both the UK and Japan.
Found Art: Making Fashion out of Plastic Packaging
Munden finds her inspiration in objects, shapes, and colors that induce a sensory overload in the viewer. For example, bold, neon plastic candy wrappers or playful cartoon characters like Sonic the Hedgehog all play a part in the construction of designs for Cassette Playa. Rather than catering to the mainstream fashion market where soft colors and fluid shapes hold consumer interest, Mundin reaches out to the folks who live in a world of video games, computer graphics, and dance-crazed clubs, tapping into their need for a more interactive experience with their attire.
Fashion Design School: A Place for Every Visionary
While Munden's bold designs are not for everyone, she is still widely appreciated on the catwalk and within the local London fashion scene for her skilled craftsmanship and her unorthodox concepts. In addition to having carved out a fashion niche for London's Neu Rave crowd, Munden's success can also be attributed to the visual arts training she received in fashion design school. Her designs clearly focus on the interplay between color, sound, movement, and pop culture--and her design school training helped her turn that original idea into a marketable product.
Fashion School: Make It what You Want
Raves and video games may not seem like the foundation for a fashion design label, but anything's possible with a unique vision and a skilled hand at work. Fashion design school is an experience that even the abstruse clothing artisan should consider as there is often a market for the well-made piece that caters to a specific taste.
