The BCA were very pleased to be able to partner a number of parties including one of its members, Genisys ARCt in a BMet college/BCU organised Commonwealth Fashion show held at BCU on the 19 December 2024. Engaging with BMet students who designed and made the costumes, and BCU who facilitated the event with all its production expertise; the event was a great success.
A number of BCA members attended the event together with Mr Wade Lyn, BCA Director. Commenting upon the show Wade said “A great show. You would be proud of the event. The models all came up from London”
Andrea Edwards, Chair of the BCA Education group –“I thought the fashion show was excellent. The work of the students was creative, professional and captured the essence of the diversity of the Commonwealth. It was also terrific to see collaboration within Birmingham with students from BMet and BCU working together.
Alison Rapey-Subject lead of Fashion and Textiles, BCU.” it went well. Hyacinth(Genisys ARCt) was a great ambassador and Wade closed the show. It was excellent collaboration across all involved, the student work looked great, and all event seats filled with standing room only .
Oliver Stokes-Director Creative, Digital, Business, Accounts & Law-Birmingham Metropolitan College.
I wanted to share how incredible the fashion show was—it truly exceeded expectations! The event looked so professional, was very well attended, and received fantastic feedback. A big thank you to the BCU team for the venue and the exceptional setup. Thank you again for your support.
Mario Sebastian Casoni-Business Development and Marketing- Genisys ARCt
“The event went amazingly, all the models were beautifully dressed, and the students did an amazing job with the suits .The Commonwealth Couture was an amazing event featuring 19 shirts made by the Fashion & Design B-MET students and 20 suits created by Fashion design students at BCU. The suits were masterfully designed by the students to project their take on the clothing designs from a multitude of commonwealth countries and presented to a full house of 130 people and broadcasted to the BCU Fashion Instagram account. The models started their dress rehearsal at 3:30 pm and the show started at 4:00 pm. We had short speeches from Mr Wade Lyn CBE, BCA Director, Oliver Stokes and Genisys ARCT. Mr Lyn spoke about the BCA and its importance in the Birmingham commonwealth community. Oliver Stokes talked about how hard the students worked and how proud he was of them and their work. Lastly, Genisys ARCt spoke about the following in the 5 minutes of its speech: Who we are as a charity, what our charity’s objective is, the discrimination that happened during the Windrush era and how the government is currently helping those affected by offering the Windrush Compensation Scheme and their new Online Careers Event Bridge 2-ur Career.”
Well done to all-BCA seen as engaging, partnering and collaborating!
Keith Stokes-Smith-BCA Chair
