The Mayor of London, Projekt, Paul Smith’s Foundation and British GQ announce the six designers selected for the Fashion Residency at Studio Smithfield in its inaugural year, 2024/25
The Mayor of London, Projekt, Paul Smith’s Foundation and British GQ are delighted to announce the six designers selected for The Fashion Residency at Studio Smithfield in its inaugural year, 2024/25.
The Fashion Residency is an innovative business development programme for early career fashion designers and includes a free studio space in the heart of the City of London. The initiative will run for 3-years, supporting three cohorts of six designers for 12-months per cohort. The studios are funded through generous investment from Projekt and The Mayor of London.
The mentoring part of the programme, designed and delivered by Paul Smith’s Foundation, includes over 60 hours of personal and business skills mentoring in the areas of legal, finance, production and marketing amongst others, created to help each designer build a career which can be sustained for the long term.
The inaugural cohort of designers were identified by their unique point of view, design aesthetic, clarity of ambition and intent for the programme. In the inaugural year, 2024/25, the designers selected are:
YAKU | Paolina Russo | Laura Pitharas
Karoline Vitto | Paolo Carzana | Pauline Dujancourt
Over 170 applications were received and the six designers in Cohort One were selected chosen on Monday 3 June following four shortlisting rounds including interviews with a panel of industry leaders. The final jurors were Justine Simons OBE, London’s Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries; Sir Paul Smith, designer and founder of Paul Smith’s Foundation and Adam Baidawi, Head of Editorial Content at British GQ.
The Mayor of London and Projekt’s investment covered the rent and fit out of the spaces. In addition to the individual studio space, designers will have free usage of meeting rooms, communal break out spaces, a dye room, a shared kitchenette, off-site photography studio and a reading room with a selection of books generously donated from the Royal Academy of Arts, Phaidon and Tate, as well as archival GQs.
The residency brings fashion to the heart of the Square Mile, at Studio Smithfield by Projekt – an all new 27,000 sqft creative hub, event space and workspace in London’s iconic Smithfield market. The Residency is all part of the Mayor of London’s commitment to help the capital’s creative industries, to offer robust support to the fashion ecosystem in London and continue to promote its commitment in supporting exceptional talent on the global stage.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries, said: “I’m delighted that we have such a talented range of designers for the first ever Fashion Residency at Studio Smithfield. Our residency combines studio space and mentoring from industry experts, helping them to take their careers to the next level. London’s creative industries are vital for our economy and our global reputation and the Mayor and I will continue to do all we can to support them, building a better London for all.”
Nick Hartwright, CEO of Projekt, said: “I’m incredibly excited that Projekt alongside our partners have created the six studios for The Fashion Residency at Studio Smithfield. The ethos behind Projekt is to provide workspaces for the creative industries in London, and by jointly funding this initiative, we are doing exactly that.”
Sir Paul Smith said: “The number of applications received was unbelievable, this really shows the need for a programme like this, and I wish we could help everyone who applied! I am excited to see how the six designers develop with the mentorship scheme we have put in place. I’ve being doing a version of this for a long time, helping people through advice, mentoring, introductions but it’s very rewarding to have this formalised and to work with such great partners.”
Notes to editors
Notes to editors:
About The Fashion Residency at Studio Smithfield
The Fashion Residency offers hands on and practical business mentoring that is bespoke to each designer’s business. Mentors in the programme include:
Adam Andrascik, co-founder and CEO of Provineer and Course Leader of MA Fashion: Digital Futures at Ravensbourne University London;
- Alice Bouleau, Partner & Head of Creative Pole at Sterling International;
- Catherine Sutton, Sutton Communications;
- Charlie Casely-Hayford, Director of Casely-Hayford;
- Felicity Kay, VIP Stylist & Style Consultant;
- Henry Holland, Founder of Henry Holland Studio;
- Helen McGowan, Production Consultant, Liberty, Margaret Howell and TOAST;
- Jason Leung & Vince To, The Alphabet Showroom;
- Phoebe Briggs, Brand Director at Harris Reed;
- Laura Holmes, Founder of Holmes Productions;
- Laura Weir, Executive Creative Director, Selfridges;
- Mandi Lennard, Founder Mandi’s Basement;
- Matthew Mumford, Head of Creative at Paul Smith;
- Murray Clark, Senior Style Editor at British GQ;
- Neha-Tamara Patel, Director of Audience Development, Analytics & Social at British GQ;
- Olya Kuryshchuk, Founder and Editor in Chief of 1 Granary;
- Orsola de Castro, Creative Director of Estethica and Co-Founder of Fashion Revolution;
- Osborne Clarke LLP;
- Patrick Atkinson, Head of Buying & Merchandising at Paul Smith;
- Philipp Raheem, Photographer and Editorial Director of Vingt Sept Magazine;
- Tamsin Blanchard, Editor of Hole & Corner and Editor and Curator of Estethica
- Vikram Menon, Financial Advisor and Founder Fashionex.
About Projekt
Projekt is an affordable work and event space developer that works with landowners, housing associations, local authorities, government bodies and agencies to shape the character of new communities and revitalise unused spaces. Projekt provides high-quality, mixed-use, affordable space for businesses, events, artists, designers and creative SMEs in the UK. It currently operates over a million square feet of workspace and event space throughout London and beyond, and supports in excess of 400 creative businesses.
Alongside Studio Smithfield, Projekt’s sites include: 58 Old Compton Street and Windmill Studios in Soho, Green Rooms Hotel a social enterprise and arts led hotel in North London, The Factory x Beams - a partnership with Broadwick on an expansive new centre for arts and culture in East London, and The Silver Building, which along with 60,000 sqft of creative workspace, houses London’s newest cultural indoor and outdoor venue ´60 Dock Road´, operated by the award winning events organisation The Cause.
Projekt has a network of over 6,000 creative enterprises, from individual artists to established cultural organisations, and works with land owners to secure long term creative and cultural space within the capital.
About Paul Smith’s Foundation
Sir Paul Smith has spent the last 50 years growing a global business as Britain’s foremost fashion designer. Renowned for his passion, positivity and determination, Paul puts his enduring success down to the many influential people who’ve advised him over the decades. In turn, he has shared his learnings with plenty of ambitious and talented individuals looking to start their own businesses. Paul Smith’s Foundation was started to provide a forum for his personal archive of helpful advice for creatives, and is intended to provide guidance and inspiration for a new generation of talent to take things to the next level while adhering to Paul’s number one priority: that you have fun along the way.