Chris O’Brien Arts Camp 2026

Description

Ages 14-18

Dates: Monday 13 April
Time: 8.30am – 3.30pm

Christopher O’Brien is a Fashion Designer & Industry Expert with over 20 years of experience. Currently Brand Creative Director of the menswear brand Farah he oversees all creative direction, realisation and delivery to market of the Farah collections as well as the visual language of the brand through marketing and ecommerce. Having started in the industry as a womenswear designer he had stints working for Giorgio Armani & Jonathan Saunders as well as working within a consultancy designing for luxury houses such as Calvin Klien, J.Mendel & Akris. He then decided to return to university to study Menswear Design at Central Saint Martins where upon completion he showed as part of Fashion East at London Fashion Week while simultaneously designing in house for E.Tautz a Saville Row ready-to-wear label. Having years of experience in the luxury sector he then decided to challenge himself to working in the premium menswear sector for Lyle & Scott helping to turn their fortunes around into a powerhouse of contemporary menswear again. He is an honoured guest tutor at Universities such as London College of Fashion and Leeds. His expertise lies in the conception of collections from drawing board to the full realisation in store and how the consumer interacts with modern day brands.

_ Intro to design – the process of designing a collection from picking a concept to carrying out market research which supports that concept – each student can create a mood board to inform the rest of the day. For this I would suggest we have lots of printed starting points, things like subculture pictures, artists, nature pictures, comics for example, I can also print a lot of market research reports from WGSN that the students can use to support the concept. I will also talk through different levels of design from super commercial to bonkers and how there is a place for all. Students can pick from these and create a physical moodboard each, I may need support getting this ready.

_ How textiles research supports your chosen concept and helps you to think about the designs of your clothing and what they will look like. I can bring fabrics for the students to take cuttings from but I think we could also ask students coming to have a little think about fabrics they like and bring some along. Maybe you guys also have fabrics available? What I have in the studio will be very commercial menswear focused. They will only need small cuttings as the intention is not to make anything. (I can also briefly chat about impact of the textile industry here and how making sustainable choices is so important)

_ Colour Palette, talking through picking a colour palette from your concept and how to use it across a collection.

_ Sketching workshop – to get students to think about being loose with ideas before honing in on designs. To freely sketch in any way the student feels comfortable. This could be drawing on mannequin templates that I can provide, freestyle sketching on paper, collage or even cad. I think it’s important to explain that there is no right or wrong at this stage, it’s just how to express ideas. I can talk through and show my personal process to give an example.

_ Editing – A massive part of the job and something I can struggle with experienced designers is being able to edit your ideas. So from the sketching stage we will pick 3-5 designs to work into a little more and develop the design.

_ Final Designs – Once we have worked into our strongest ideas we can pick our favourite designs and start to make a line up. I think this can be loose again depending on what the student feels they can output but i would say 1 – 3 outfits. We can pick fabrics for the designs and talk about what colours we would use. I think it would be good to help them think about how they would make that garment without us actually making it on the day. The type of stitching they want to use or more intricate details such as pockets, pleats or bows, we can draw these out in a little more detail to support the design and convey the idea.