Delving into Lightness

In conversation with Amelie Bartholomew, she discusses bringing lightness and spirituality into her design for Central Saint Martins’ Reset Show.

Amelie Bartholomew's look for the Reset Show 2023, photographed by Amelie Bartholomew

The first time I sat down with Amelie Bartholomew, I felt her warm and positive aura. She was wearing a blue button-up and black trousers, understated and chic. I knew immediately that she was humble – about her talent and everything beyond the brick walls of Central Saint Martins (CSM). Being accepted to study womenswear design at CSM is no small feat, and the expectation is that those who do, prance around the campus – a restored granary building – knowing they will become some of fashion’s next top designers. Not Bartholomew, though. While there’s no doubt she’s got the talent, she lets it shine through her work, lighting up every time she talks about design. 

Growing up in Wigan in Greater Manchester, Bartholomew loved art from a young age, studying fine art in her foundation year before applying to CSM. “I love fine art, but I think I’m more drawn to fashion, and it was this course that made me realise that I could weave them both together,” she says. 

Work in progress of Amelie Bartholomew's look for the Reset Show 2023

Whilst most designers opted for darker themes within their work, Bartholomew embraced lightness, taking inspiration from The Spirit of Yoga by Cat de Rham and Michèle Gill, a spirituality book her mother gifted to her before moving to London. “I found it quite stressful at the start of university and I wanted to explore something that would help me,” she says. “I wanted to do something uplifting because that book is quite special and connects me back to home.” 

Chock-full of inspiration, she devoted a considerable amount of time to the research process, investigating these concepts and penning down her thoughts. Although plenty of designers find solace in creating illustrations, Bartholomew is the opposite, finding that the written word helps her express herself more concisely. “I’m very used to writing and I find it a lot easier to write rather than making it visual, so I do that first,” she says. Wanting to capture the audience and take them on the same venture she went on when reading The Spirit of Yoga, she says, “I want to have layers of meaning within a piece rather than just saying one thing, so I find it interesting to explore something that takes you on a bit of a journey.”

“I want to have layers of meaning within a piece rather than just saying one thing"

For the Reset Show – formerly the White Show, a long-running CSM tradition in which over 150 first-year fashion students showcase an all-white look – she knew that spirituality would be entwined throughout her work. Delving into a poem written by 13th-century poet, Rumi, she started observing the soul as a bowl – specifically, something that is circular. “I started looking at circles, how the end is the beginning and making a full circle in life, so that’s what I wanted to tell,” she shares. From there, she considered the Eightfold Path, which she tells me is “all about this eight-step structure of how you find your inner self,” and a lake in the mountains, which is “always there, but you can’t always see it from different perspectives.”

Condensing this multitude of ideas and then effectively translating them into a cohesive design is where the challenge truly began. “I got really lost in the research and I came up with quite a lot of design ideas – and then because I’ve never really made things before, I was so limited by what I could do,” she says. “I just suddenly thought, ‘I actually can’t make all of this,’ so I had to strip it right down to a simple idea.” 

Amelie Bartholomew's look for the Reset Show on the runway

Working through this setback, she landed on the circularity theme, creating a bowl-shaped garment from white suede, concaving in the centre. But, still wanting to incorporate another element, she asked the question, “‘What does discovery look like?’,” and unearthed that it’s “like your own boat inside of you, driving the sails.” Intricately sewn shirting was then sculpted with boning into sails, with a horizontal pole impaling the circular dress and a vertical pole serving as the mast. 

As music blasted through the walls of CSM and lights danced energetically, illuminating the endless crowd, Bartholomew's look bounced down the runway, with the sails catching the breeze. Having seen the design throughout each stage, and knowing the story behind the garment, made it that much more breathtaking. 

Swiftly after the show ended, I made my way through the bustling swarm of people and headed straight towards the fashion studios. Upon tracking her down within the chaos, Bartholomew, with the biggest grin plastered on her face, tells me, “It feels very satisfying, seeing it all come together and represent a very meaningful concept.” And I, having only met Bartholomew a few months prior, could tell what it had meant to her. Throughout all of the blood, sweat, and tears, she encapsulated “this idea of ‘to lightness’” within one singular all-white look.