David Holah News

David Holah's coverage has three distinct eras, and the news desk keeps them straight. The first is Bodymap: the controversial catwalk shows, the Martini Award of 1983, the Wool Awards and Best of British honors, the Bessie Award of 1987 — a five-year run in which a young British label dominated its country's fashion story. The second is the working designer behind other names: freelance ranges for Benetton, Fiorucci and Itochu, styling for commercials and pop promos through the 1990s, visiting lectureships at St Martins, Middlesex, Epsom, Brighton and Barnet. The third is the artist: the MA in Fine Art at Camberwell in 2006 and the printmaking that followed. This page is the news desk for his record in this guide.

The reference links run current searches for David Holah news, photos and videos. For the background the headlines assume, turn to the profiles page; for the work itself, to the collections, fall and spring pages.

Illustrative image created for this guide — an artistic impression, not this designer's own garments.

Reading Designer News Well

Holah news rewards context more than most, because the same name signs three careers. A story about an 1980s revival exhibition means one thing read against the Bodymap record — the graphic prints, the layered outfits, the shows that put British fashion back on the map — and a story about his prints means another read against the 2006 turn: an MA in Fine Art at Camberwell and a printmaking practice exploring the glamour and decoration of fashion itself. That is the work the rest of this series does: the profiles page separates the eras, and the collections page files the design work the revival stories cite.

The rhythm of his news has changed with the eras. In the Bodymap years, coverage crested at the shows and the honors; in the freelance years it ran through other labels' credits; in the art years it follows exhibitions and the continuing reassessment of 1980s British fashion, in which Bodymap outfits displayed in museums worldwide — the Victoria and Albert Museum among them — keep his design work in the present tense.

News in the Record

Filed over time, news becomes history. The profiles page draws on the accumulated record to tell the career from the first class degree at Middlesex Polytechnic to the printmaker of 2006; the collections page files the work each era produced. Readers researching Holah — for study, for the history of British fashion, or for the dance costumes — can move between the running record and the filed one from the series links on this page.

One caution the news desk always applies: check dates, and check which Holah a story means — the designer of 1984, the stylist of the 1990s or the printmaker of 2006 share a name and a sensibility, but they are three chapters, and the season-specific pages in this series are the corrective.