Just read the article in the Mail about German Mag Brigitte swapping really thin models for Real Women and am really excited to see the tide beginning to turn. I am so excited to be putting on a show like this at the ICA. For as long as I can remember i have been using Real people models wherever i could, so this project is very close to my heart. In 1987 I held the first of many experimental catwalk shows with a close friend of mine Joey Attawai who was art directing the show at the Almeida Theatre called ‘Style with a smile’. Models were Real people, fashion & art students of all shapes and sizes, up and coming actors and actresses including Cathy Burke. The music was by Raw sex (roland rivron). The night saw many up and coming fashion designers on the catwalk including Joe Casely-Hayford and English Eccentrics. In 1991 i held another experimental catwalk show in Riga Latvia where i used Fashion designers to model and show their own collections, including Oswald Boateng and students who had come along on the trip. Six years ago I started holding catwalk shows at my Designer Sales in Brick Lane featuring models and dancers. I chose dancers because i wanted to show the clothes on real people who could also show the great movement in clothes. The dancers were all about five foot tall, of average dress size 12-14 very muscular and the models were all around six foot tall. After the show i went around and asked my customers what they thought of the show and nearly everyone said the same thing, ‘I could not relate to the models but could really relate to the dancers’. I started to experiment with this idea and would include dancers in many of the shows after this. Then it dawned on me, why not ask my customers to model, after all they are the ones buying the clothes. I sent out an email and the response was amazing! So this show is a long time coming and as Johnny Blue eyes said in my prototype show in February this year, ‘come, be inspired, be surprised and think of beauty in an imperfectly perfect way’. This is a celebration of who we are, a celebration of our bodies and of our clothes, this is who we are! The time is now! Tickets are selling fast so make sure you grab yours, go to www.ica.org