Jasper Conran, one of the fashion authorities lending weight to the cause, spring/summer 2009...
JASPER CONRAN, Mulberry and Savile Row tailors Henry Poole are among the leading fashion authorities lending their support to a new campaign encouraging the government to invest more money into the UK's fashion colleges, following reported concerns that colleges were producing graduates who lack basic skills.
As a luxury goods manufacturer, craftsmanship is what sets us apart from the high street. There used to be a big pool of skilled labour, which has gone now," Ian D Scott, supply director at Mulberry, tells INDEPENDENT.CO.UK. "If you take a Mulberry Bayswater bag, there are three hours of craftmanship in it. You have someone sewing, another inking the seams, somebody riveting: these things are not made on a production line." Linda Florance, chief executive of Skillfast UK, the sector skills council for fashion and textiles which, as a result of these worries has set up the Behind The Seams, a campaign designed to highlight the need for craftsmanship in the UK fashion industry, explains: "If graduates do not have pattern-cutting, computer-aided design and production skills, they can't put their creative ability to use in the industry. We have heard from students who have paid up to £10,000 in course fees, yet have to pay again for private lessons, just to learn the basic skills that will make them employable."