Thurs 5th Jan 2012: "Bright Young Things" install at Selfridges: Sorcha O’Raghallaigh

Last year began the scheme of Bright Young Things at Selfridges Department Store in London where the creative team decided to dedicate the windows and area of the shop floor to emerging designers. Alongside allowing the talent to take over installing individual displays they were also commissioned to fill a special pop-up shop in store with a tailored selection of sales items. This visual insight is a perfect platform to promote blossoming brands and secondly offer the public a chance to purchase one of their early pieces. Workshops were organised for the artists to share their unique skills with classes held in the space so customers could meet the new generation of names and try out their disparate disciplines.
A second year has been under construction, researching and recruiting 15 creatives from varying fields including fashion, accessories, photography, illustration and cuisine. Each practitioner has been shown the ropes of how to undertake the task of putting together a set design to encapsulate their aesthetic and given two night shifts to make the concepts a reality. I was allowed access last night to take a tour around each area and document the initial stages of setting up their wares. Its been exactly three years since I was in the windows myself, installing headwear to the January scheme so luckily I know my way around the warren of tight spaces to find the pockets of prop arranging pandemonium.
Congratulations to all the artists involved in unfamiliar territory of preparing a 3D world for their products / ideas to inhabit. Over the next few posts I will be unveiling who is on the agenda and showing a little sneak peak into the work in progress ....... beginning with Womenswear designer Sorcha O’Raghallaigh who is creating a pastel pink cloud sky in a hyper-real dream scene ............centring around a ten-foot-tall mannequin reflecting the models from her CSM graduate show, who walked the runway on stilts................

Get involved in the project that opens tomorrow by searching and using #selfridgesbyt on Twitter.

See my coverage of last year including a studio visit to Simone Rocha prior to her involvement in the scheme here.