Does Central Saint Martins have a class problem?

Aliona Kolesnikova speaks to working class fashion students on the prestigious BA Fashion course to uncover the hidden burdens and barriers of being working class at the best fashion school in the wo

Where are all the working class fashion students? That was my question when I first came to the Berghain-esque building as a fresher last year. It didn’t bother me at first (some rich people actually do have a personality) until the white show. The white show at Central Saint Martins is the first time when the BA designers get to show their work to the press and the wider CSM community. As an FJ (fashion journalism student), I was assigned a designer to profile for one of my first projects. Two  weeks after I had submitted the profile for my designer I had found out from one of her classmates that the entire garment was made by her mum’s seamstresses (her mum is a senior designer at Cath Kidston). I was profusely angry. Knowing that if I were studying womenswear, there would be no way on God’s earth I’d be able to just pay off a few machinists to make my garments for me. 

The practice of fashion students  paying private seamstresses to have their garments made for them seems to be a normalised part of CSM culture. Every student I spoke to about this knows someone who knows someone who has spent thousands for someone else to do their work for them. It feels like cheating. One BA Fashion Print student anonymously tells me “I was interning for a designer and the machinist that was working for her was booked everyday to work for CSM students and she charged £60 per hour. Everyday she wasn’t working in the studio, she was working for CSM students. It’s a lot more than I thought it was.” And it’s a problem that essentially is swept under the rug. When I asked other students about this, Laila Xhilaj, a second year BA womenswear student told me: “I always got the impression that it was something tutors didn’t care much about, it was never something that was emphasised to us, I think they like to ignore it and pretend that it doesn’t happen.”

Central Saint Martins is an art school, and the BA Fashion course does not grade students solely on technique, it’s more concept over technical execution. This is in contrast to other fashion schools such as Westminster and London College of Fashion. Which is perhaps what makes the school so unique in bringing out some of the Industries most innovative designers of the century. Student’s are constantly pushed to stretch their creativity to the max. But is this unbridled creativity only afforded to those who can pay up? Whilst hiring seamstresses isn’t against any official university rules nor is it inherently a bad thing, it skews the playing field for student designers even further. “It’s so frustrating to me that I’m essentially having to go up against people, not other people in my class, but people with 10 years of experience because they're the ones who are sewing it.” Laila adds on. “I’m not resentful about it, I just wish I didn’t have to work as much”. The problem seems to be so bad that she tells me that her friend who studies fashion at Nottingham Trent, thought that all fashion design students at CSM used seamstresses for their work: “It’s something CSM is notorious for”. 

But it’s not just the controversial practices of other students that makes it difficult for a working class student to survive at Saint Martins. Angel Patrick, another second year womenswear student receives the full student loan and yet still struggles to pay for rent, general living costs and the materials required for her course. She tells me: “Materials add up, and some projects require metres and metres of fabric. I also have to work to afford living in London, meaning I lose lots of time where I could be creating.” Like most other working class students at other universities, almost all of them have a part time job on top of their university course. I had to conduct the interview over email as she couldn’t find the time to sit down with me, a further indication of how overworked these students are. 

But what's distinct about CSM , is that not only are there additional material costs in every project, it's also an intensely time consuming course, creating the perfect recipe for burnout.

 “I work 5 days a week at uni and a retail job on the weekend, I’m calling in sick tomorrow so I can have more time for my project” Emanuele Morcinelli another Womenswear student, who grew up with a single mum in a little town in Northern Italy, tells me whilst they’re finishing off a design in the library. “Two weeks ago I went to work and I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other because I was so exhausted, I got sent home and spent 6 hours in bed, which I felt really guilty for afterwards” they describe to me. Every single student I had spoken to had experienced burnout multiple times throughout the course, and it can completely discourage them from pursuing fashion as a career knowing that they have to jeopardise their health to further their career. 

CSM does offer multiple scholarships in order to support their material and living costs. From the British Fashion council to the LVMH, there are organisations offering upwards of £18,000 to support students in their final collections, based on merit and financial background. 

Hannah Garner is a final year BA Womenswear student who grew up with a single mum in Carlisle, her final collection aims to “aid real working people of society, by striving to highlight the injustices they face and demonstrate the power they hold”. She’s also a BFC Scholar: “Luckily I have received a £4000 scholarship, though my friend who is also working class is having to change designs and fabric to be able to afford to make her collection, while I know of someone spending £5000 on one metal structure”. Despite the scholarships that are on offer, amongst the working class students I spoke to, there seems to be a clear dissatisfaction with how effective they are at bridging the gap between working class students and those who are financially well off. “I always feel weird applying because I think “do I struggle enough?”, I do still live with my parents, I don’t like to be a person who over exaggerates my struggle, like am I poor enough?” Xhilaj tells me. Patrick also tells me that “I’ve always found personally I haven’t been able to make enough time to apply without my work taking a hit.”

When taking this into consideration. It gives us a better idea of why rich students hiring private seamstresses can be so jarring. All CSM fashion students were admitted based on their creativity. With admission rates being at 5 percent on the BA fashion course (lower than any course in Oxford and Cambridge), some of the most creative minds in the country and internationally are at the university. It’s the top of the top. But when you hire private seamstresses you can execute your vision a lot better, which places you at an immense advantage against your peers. But it’s not only the financial advantages that these wealthier students have, often working class students feel isolated by the amount of opulence amongst their peers. It’s a surreal feeling when you’re spending your Easter break working full time at a bar in Shoreditch whilst your peers are on expensive family holidays in Barbados or skiing in the Alps.  “I obviously don’t know the financial situation of my peers. I suspect that the majority of them are from privileged backgrounds, yet they still feel hard done by. I’ve overheard people stating how poor they are, then learning they live in a 3-room studio in soho- I think they see poverty differently, while not understanding what actual poor people go through.” Garner adds on. “I think the creative industry is viewed very differently by people in different classes. I’d never heard of fine art until I was 18, I didn't study art at a level or GCSE,but many from middle or upper class backgrounds will have been engulfed in this world their whole lives.”

That's why many of these issues are difficult to address. When you’re a working class student in an environment which is so heavily middle to upper class, speaking up can feel like you’re moaning about an already challenging course. But when the scales are so skewed, Something must be addressed.

A lot more work must be done by these institutions in order to make these courses more accessible for students of lower income backgrounds. This is an overarching problem within the industry at large, rife with nepotism and unpaid internships which bring further hurdles to working class people trying to get their foot in the door. But institutions as powerful and wealthy as Central Saint Martins do have the facilities to change things. 

“I think they should obviously still have the scholarships, but I think it would be helpful if they just had more understanding, like on certain projects, tutors will say like “oh you have to go out and buy this fabric and spend this and do that “ And it just adds up. I wish there was more understanding that if I’m working on the weekend I can’t get as much done.” Xhilaj tells me.