For those looking to brush up on their fashion illustration skills: you’re in luck. London-based Central Saint Martins designer Isabella Smith is inviting guests to sketch her transformative AW21 collection at 180 The Strand’s Reference Point space.

Besides life drawing and drinks, guests will get a first look at Smith’s new collection – an exploration of stripped back, distorted glamour, displayed through subversive gowns, swirling patterns, and futuristic metal accessories. 

"This collection forms a dialogue between our garments and ourselves, how they act both as a projection of the self and a protective shell,” said Smith, crediting Southern France’s abandoned Hotel Provence and English author JG Ballard’s 1973 cult fetish novel, Crash, as inspirations. 

“(Ballard) describes one of the protagonists as ‘sat in the damaged car like a deity occupying a shrine…reborn within the breaking contours of her crushed sports car’,” added the designer. “This inspired me to work with metal, seeking to echo the forms of rich folds of fabric and explore how it relates to the body whilst taking the car as an iconic symbol of glamour and warping it."

Isabella Smith’s AW21 event takes place on December 10 at 180 The Strand’s Reference Point centre. Sign up for tickets here.