Kingston student shows off rice shoes at London Fashion Week

A Kingston University bagged herself a spot at London Fashion Week.

Charlotte Tanner

A fashion MA student was featured at London Fashion Week where she displayed her take on shoes made of rice.

Julia Skergeth, 21, managed to get herself a spot in this year’s Vauxhall Fashion Scout (VFS) showcase, where InCrops, an eco-friendly designs company, asked KU fashion students to create a piece that reflected ‘sustainable luxury’.

“My drive was to create something that looks like diamonds and crystals but out of materials that you wouldn’t necessarily consider as luxurious,” said Skergeth about her own design.

In her piece, she used rice to reproduce the crystal look, but needed a base material for the shoe and used silicon as a mould making material to complete the look.

Ms Skergeth researched existing shoe shapes in order to create something completely new and innovative for the show.

“It was quite difficult and time-consuming. For the prototype, I glued over 1300 rice grains on just one shoe. I worked all summer long developing it.”

“High street shoes nowadays are becoming more extreme so I was not afraid to go beyond my limits,” she said.

Foot in the door of the fashion world

“A few people have blogged about the shoes, but unfortunately, I was extremely busy until the very end of the showcase that I didn’t have much time to enjoy the whole experience.

“Despite that, Fashion Week is always exciting and you can always tell when it is going on, no matter what fashion capital you are in,” she said.

Skergeth does not think she’ll be stopping any time soon as she plans on further exploring the fashion world and wants to inspire people to use more bio-based products in their designs.

“I have lived in New York, now London and my next stop is Paris. I really want to learn two more languages and gain experience in some fantastic fashion capitals at the same time.”

Skergeth also hopes to start her own line of shoes some time in the near future.

“I love Lady Gaga and I think that she would look good in the shoes I create. Maybe one day.”