At LCCA, we don’t just practise designing for our future careers, we get involved with real industry, working on live projects that lead to real-world outcomes.
In the Autumn term, fashion students took part in a live brief with global charity Oxfam, reworking donated outerwear through sustainability, circular fashion and creative storytelling. The project resulted in students’ final pieces being exhibited inside an Oxfam store, with selected designs displayed in the front window for the public to see.
How the collaboration started
The Oxfam project came out of MAKING IT: Creative Careers Unlocked , a new video series created at LCCA to give students a clearer picture of how creative careers actually work. Hosted by our Head of Industry Engagement and Partnerships, Sadie Clayton, the series focuses on honest conversations with professionals working across fashion and design.
More than that, each participating organisation featured in the series also creates a live brief for LCCA students. That means students aren’t just learning about the fashion industry – they’re getting live access to it.
Working with Oxfam
In the premiere episode of MAKING IT, Sadie visited Oxfam in Bethnal Green to meet branch manager Kelly-Ann Saunders. They talked about visual merchandising, storytelling in retail spaces, and how shops can reflect the communities they serve.
The conversation also laid the groundwork for the student brief.
Fashion students were invited to transform donated outerwear with the requirement that at least 40% of each original garment had to be used in the final design. To take part, students also donated two pre-loved items of their own to Oxfam, reinforcing the circular focus of the project from the start.
Over several months, students worked through the full redesign process, focusing on:
- Designing with sustainability in mind
- Deconstruction, repair and reuse techniques
- Gaining an in-depth understanding of the circular economy in practice
- Injecting social meaning to garment design
Rather than designing something brand new from scratch, the brief pushed students to think carefully about how clothing can be recycled, repaired and revalued instead of discarded.
Each finished garment also included a QR code linking to its journey, including where the piece came from, how it was transformed, and how it should be cared for by future owners.
The result
The completed collection was put on display in Oxfam’s Bethnal Green store windows for one week, with six standout designs featured in the shop window.
For students, seeing their work styled and installed for public view was very different from submitting or presenting their work for assessment in the classroom. Some students also chose to donate their final pieces back to Oxfam, with 100% of proceeds supporting Oxfam’s global work.
As Kelly-Ann explained: “This collaboration empowers students to see fashion as a force for change – combining creativity, sustainability and social impact.”
Why projects like this matter
Working on live briefs like this helps students understand how fashion connects to wider systems like sustainability, ethics and community impact. It also provides a unique opportunity to build stronger portfolios, real industry experience and a clearer sense of how creative careers function in the real world.
The Oxfam collaboration is just one example of how LCCA connects students directly with industry and how a thoughtful approach fashion education can be about so much more than style alone.
You can catch up on all MAKING IT episodes on LCCA’s YouTube channel and find out more about the courses on offer at LCCA here.
