Past Present.

Welcome to our shows from 2020-2023.

This is a showcase of work by students in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, who graduated from 2020 to 2022.

It's all of us, together, in a digital show you curate for yourself - not pre-arranged into rooms, courses or disciplines. You do the arranging. Want to see all the red things we made? Or all the work about identity, nature or isolation? Look at what you want to, when you want to, whether it's all the illustration, all the writing, all the movies or performance. You get the idea.

This exhibition is yours for the making. Go explore.

For more information about our faculty, visit the ARU website.
Whilst Anglia Ruskin University remains committed to freedom of speech for individuals, the views and opinions included in this showcase belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Anglia Ruskin University. If you've got any concerns please contact us.

Cleo Smith

Fashion Design - BA (Hons)

Cleo Smith is an enthusiastic fashion designer with a sustainable element in her designs. Cleo sources second-hand denim from local charity shops, aiming to reduce the chances of them ending up in landfill, and repurposes the denim through patchwork to create innovative garments.

The upcoming demand for a more sustainable fashion world has sparked an interest in Cleo and has since initiated her love for patchwork with sustainable denim. Cleo also has a huge love for streetwear, becoming inspired by Virgil Abloh for Off-White, and has based her final collection on this ever-evolving fashion movement.

Being shortlisted for a sustainable competition hosted by UNTAGGED and Graduate Fashion Week, one of her patchwork garments will feature at the UNTAGGED showing at Graduate Fashion Week this summer.

Cleo aims to work on designing for womenswear/childrenswear brands and eventually will be starting her patchwork denim brand, spreading awareness and encouraging conscious consumer buying habits.

Social Dystopia is a streetwear collection that explores how social media changes the perceptions of ourselves through the eyes of others, and how “likes” and “comments” are forced upon us to achieve the perpetually changing “desired aesthetic”. Body positivity is reflected through the use of pop art style vinyl's, sustainable patchwork denim and oversized garments to create a visual positive message.

With a puffer jacket, varsity jacket, dungarees, and cargo jeans, this collection pays homage to 1990s streetwear taking notes from key staple pieces from that movement and reinventing them in a new and innovative style.

This collection also features three garments made from sustainable patchwork denim, the oversized hoodie dress, dungarees, and cargo jeans to push a sustainable message for this collection and repurposing denim that could have ended in a landfill. It was important to have elements of sustainability in this collection as it is an ever-growing problem that needs to be highlighted to make a change in the fashion world.

In reference to the social media element in my collection, individual comments from my personal Instagram have been highlighted using pop art style vinyls and displayed across the garments to make the consumer feel body positive and confident when wearing.

More about this course