The Bridges once again set our third-year Fashion Journalism students a styling challenge to create Christmas party looks for all the family to go inside their Style Pod. The team planned and curated the outfits and props from retailers inside the centre.
Image credit: Fashion North
For this week’s challenge, the team chose a collection of outfits that were Christmas party-ready, styling together this sequin embellished mini dress from River Island for the woman, a green tutu for the child and a navy floral shirt for the man.
Image credit: Fashion North
From left to right: Megan West, Abigail Blewitt and Lucy Britnell
Lucy Britnell, Fashion North’s editor said: “I enjoyed this week’s style challenge, the theme of Christmas party wear for the family fitted the time of year and, this meant that we had loads of options of outfits from all the retailers.
“I particularly liked the woman outfit, I feel like it is something I would wear myself. The sparkly dress is fitting for the festive season and is very on-trend at the moment. It was a fun day and, we have had a great opportunity to work in a real-life styling environment.”
Megan West, agony aunt at Fashion North said: “It was really fun playing and experimenting with clothes of different textures and colours that you wouldn’t usually put together. For example, we have a theme of soft pink across all three of the figures. With the theme being Christmas, we wanted the mannequins to scream Christmas party season while looking sophisticated at the same time.
“I especially loved the fact that the little girl wears a butterfly necklace to match the women’s butterfly hairband. However, the most fun part of the day was finding an outfit for the little dog we chose to complete the family.”
@fashion_northStyle the Bridges fashion pod with us | Party edition✨@uniofsunderland ##fyp ##fupシ ##fashiontiktok ##fashionhacks ##fashion101 ##fashioninspo ##styletips ##stylesnap ##styleinspo ##sunderland
Abigail Blewitt, contributor at Fashion North said: “I enjoyed the day, as I love Christmas. I chose the green tulle skirt for the child as I thought it was fun for a child and still had the Christmas party element with the material and gold star embellishments.
“It was a little bit harder this time for me to help style the man, as we needed it to look formal enough for a Christmas party without taking away from the fun elements included in both the women and child.”
“Dressing the mannequins was another challenge for them, as they had never tried it before, and it is certainly not as easy as it looks, but they soon mastered it. The students also dressed the pod, sourcing additional products that set the scene for the theme.
“Overall, they did brilliantly, and their styling work was definitely of industry standard. The fashion journalism programme at the university has always had strong links with industry, and the styling challenge at The Bridges is a great example of this.
“Not only do our students get to experience styling for a retail market, alongside developing their skills, but they are also able to make contacts with key marketing staff too. We are looking forward to continuing our arrangement with the Bridges, and our second year’s students will be taking on the style pod challenge next year too.”