LCF students take over Diesel's Covent Garden store

A selection of London College of Fashion students have teamed up with denim label Diesel to stage a month long creative take over of their London flagship store in Covent Garden.

Five postgraduate students where previously hand chosen by Diesel's artistic director, Nicola Formichetti, to create a unique concept for the store as part of the brand's ongoing efforts to support emerging talents. Diesel worked with several different student groups prior to selecting the winning five students: Eshaan Dhingra, Griselda Ibarra, Irene Rodriguez, Laksamee Jong and Maxime Laprade, all MA students from LCF numerous fashion courses. Their winning design is said to have been inspired by the history of Covent Garden and the 19th century flower girls which made it famous.

"I am really proud to be able to support young creatives from many different horizons through the takeover of Diesel’s London Covent Garden flagship store by the students of London College of Fashion," said Nicola Formichetti on the collaboration. "Supporting young talent and fostering creativity is something very dear to me and to Diesel. It is by supporting those new talents that we are helping create the creative minds of tomorrow."

The in store takeover saw the student transform all three floors of the store into their concept. The store's ground floor has become home to a flower market, the first floor adorned with flower crown tutorials and the lower ground floor will host a male grooming station and jazz band, highlighting the darker side of Covent Garden at the time.

"While researching for this project, we were really surprised to learn that Covent Garden used to be the London center for sex trade," said the students to LCF News. "We thought it was the best starting point to create a wow factor and to link the store to the area. We thus created a overall concept for the store interior, exterior and an IMC campaign for communication and launch event, doing our best to interpret the theme through the eye of the brand."

Bethan Alexander, Course Director of MA Fashion Retail Management, who oversaw the collaboration from start to finish added: "Diesel were an amazing collaborative partner- enthusiastic, embracing and immersive with the students and faculty throughout the process. They provided an incredible learning opportunity over the 15 week partnership with the winning group not only flown off to Diesel HQ in Italy but to have their ideas brought to life for the entire month of August in store. It doesn’t get much better than that!"

The store take over runs from August 11 until September 12.

Photos: Diesel LCF takeover, LCF blog