Applied Series: What It Means to be the World's #1 Fashion School with John Lau at London College of Fashion

Becoming Dean of Academic Strategy at London College of Fashion
The North West of England is not necessarily associated with fashion, but the small town where John Lau grew up is where it all began.  From reading his first copies of Vogue, to working in America and China in John's early fashion career, to now becoming the Dean of Academic Strategy at London College of Fashion, John shares how he uses all of these experiences to shape the future of fashion education. 

Embedding Tech & Innovation into Fashion Education
John offers us a peek into how London College of Fashion secures its top-notch ranking by nurturing groundbreaking programs that cater to the global market. Listeners will be familiar with the Fashion Innovation Agency from previous episodes, but tech and innovation are being embedded throughout LCF's DNA. John and Peter bring all of this together by dissecting what fashion students and upskilling professional need to do stand out in a highly competitive fashion industry. It's more than what you think!

John and LCF are featured in chapter 2 of the book Fashion Tech Applied.  Check it out.

Find out about London College of Fashion here.
Connect with John on LinkedIn.

*EXCLUSIVE OFFER* -20% discount for podcast listeners on the printed or ebook of Fashion Tech Applied. Purchase your copy at Springer here using the discount code*: 08cWPRlx1J7prE

*Offer ends end June 2024

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Fashion tech applied is published, my co-authored book taking you through six chapters and covering the technologies and innovations powering the fashion industry. I'm Peter Joen Ho Sang, founder and CEO of Beyondform, and welcome to the special podcast series applied. Each episode, I'll be sitting down with incredible fashion tech professionals that are featured inside the book. On today's episode, I'm sitting down with John Lau, dean of Academic Strategy at London College of Fashion and a gentleman that I've known for a very long time, even before I stepped foot into the doors of the university as a student. Fashion education is something that we like to place a lens on at Beyondform, especially when thinking about the next generation of fashion leaders and, essentially, how they're going to be the new guard equipped with the relevant skills. John is featured in chapter two of the book, and in today's conversation we discuss how one can stay relevant in the fashion industry.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Sometimes you do have to repart a repart to move on, and that part of that is learning new skills and it's really important that we are always updating our tech skills. It's not to say that you have to be proficient, even an expert, in all of the tech skills, but actually having an appreciation and understanding how it works, it's easier for you to work so that you can have that conversation with them.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Let's get to the conversation with John on this episode of Venturing Into Fashion Tech. How are you today, john? Very well, thank you. That's good to hear again, and I am now reminiscing about my London College of Fashion days through the virtual medium For those of our regular listeners. I was at the Stratford campus with Matthew Drinkwater in our previous episode and now I'm joining John Lau virtually, who is the Dean of Academic Strategy at LCF. You and I go way back, don't we, john?

Speaker 2: 1:57

Yes, we do, let's not give our age away. But yes, we go quite far.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Let's not give our age away. Nobody wants to hear our ages. Just a very long time when, before I even started university, it was the London College of Fashion. That's how long we've known each other. You have obviously been on a very long journey through the fashion industry, shall we say. We're going to get some of those insights today through this episode, not just in academia, but also through your commercial work that you've done previously as well around the world. But of course, you know our in academia. And just to set the scene for our listeners, the global fashion education market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.7% during 2022 to 29, and that's according to data library research. So apparently the fashion education space is growing.

Speaker 1: 2:56

I know that, john, you at LCF are bursting at the scenes with students post pandemic. It seems that people are wanting to come to London to study at LCF and come to the one of the fashion capitals of the world. Luckily, they've known as our listeners what I've seen in our previous episode with Matthew LCF New Stratford campus that opened in 2023. So congratulations for that. By the way, john, it's the first time in its history that it's bringing together 6,500 students. That's a huge amount that will see through its doors and, in terms of staff members, that's going to be around 1000 staff members across all of these floors in the building. For those of you that are not looking through the video version of this, our listeners John is currently sat within a concrete box, very industrial as a as a as a meeting room, shall we say, but it is a beautiful building. In 2022, the London College of Fashion was ranked number one fashion school in the world by CEO world. So again, congratulations, john. I'm sure you and your team work very hard to make that happen.

Speaker 2: 4:13

They certainly do, they certainly did yes.

Speaker 1: 4:16

I high accolade that. Oc means high standards that need to be maintained and that is very much your role ensuring that LCF remains at the top of its game with its reputation it's preceding the most important in making students get the education that they require, come out with the skills that they need. Lcf continues by introducing new forward thinking programs, such as the MSc fashion analytics and forward passing program, departments such as the digital learning lab and an acillary team such as the fashion innovation agency that we've heard previously with Matthew Drinkwater. That are all brought together to enrich the fashion education ecosystem, not just in London. But LCF does a lot of work around the world as well.

Speaker 1: 4:59

But before we get stuck into all of that, you, john, you are deeply ingrained into the fashion education system, but that wasn't necessarily where you started. As I alluded to at the start, you're also doing commercial work within the industry as well, and I remember us talking about some of the challenges working within production out in China, and I know you have very rich and colorful stories around this. I want to know tell our listeners about your journey from LCF as a student. You actually studied there as well. You did some work in the industry, you left the college and now you're back as a member of staff. So, everything in between, how did you get there?

Speaker 2: 5:45

Well, I mean, it's been a very interesting journey and I've loved my fashion career and I still consider that the safe fashion career. It's just within a different context of fashion. I actually started my fashion career before coming to LCF. I was this kind of geeky 14 year old who picked up a copy of Zod in the 90s I want to argue which edition it was but I just picked it up and I thought, wow, this is amazing. You know, looking at the incredible workmanship that went behind the old couture pieces, it was incredible and I was fascinated. That was it. I was fascinated and I remember going to college and spending some of my time working in a factory in in Manchester making corporate wear. It was just a fascination process and from that point on I was hooked and I wanted to make a career out of it and I'd never really planned you know where I would land. I mean never knew I would ever be in this position. I mean, I'd approved Lich position at Lillian College of Fashion and indeed the fashion world and I don't take that position. I don't take this lightly. Coming to Lillian College of Fashion from a small town in northwest of England, it completely opened my eyes to the possibilities of the fashion industry and mixing with people that understood everything that is about fashion and that's what we're known for. When I graduated, I put as a women's wear designer just briefly, which is a women's wear designer? But it was through that I actually found my passion for magazines and magazines and I moved into that space. And what was interesting was my skills were needed. My fashion design skills were needed because I was able to talk about how clothing worked and how accessories worked. So that was really helpful for me to put the obstruction pages together and it was absolutely fascinating. It was a completely new process for me. But then, moving on, I did that in London and I also worked with a photographer in New York and I was styling for photo shoots in New York, which again, that was a real culture shock to me, because it was so much more business-like to be styling and then so much about pace, about really looking at the audience, understanding the audience, because in London you have much more freedom to do what you want to do creatively, understanding your readers. But in a bag wow, it was completely open. It opened my eyes to really looking at your customer, understanding your customer and working with them. So that was incredibly fascinating.

Speaker 2: 8:45

And when I moved to Hong Kong I briefly moved back into designing for a license. We had the license for an Italian luxury brand for, specifically for the Chinese market, and it was then that snowballed me working in production management and the first day I walked back into the factory it felt like I was at 60-year-olds. I was absolutely fascinated by all of the machines and at that time production was still very much on manufacturing skills. It didn't have as much tech then as it does now. It was there that I realized that we needed to build on my skills. I felt I needed to build on my business skills, so I came back to the UK and did my fastest degree About 10 years ago.

Speaker 2: 9:35

I moved to LCF as a program director of fashion overseeing the management and leadership of the fashion program, which included menswear, women's wear, va courses, also fashion jewellery, and that was an exciting time for me because it was a real change in that I moved away from the actual teaching. Moving away from that was quite fascinating. I was then overseeing much more than just one single course or single unit or module. I was overseeing so much that I kind of overseeing all the things I became About two years later, I was promoted to the associate dean for the School of Design and Technology.

Speaker 2: 10:20

So then I had a very different vantage point of the school.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Myself and the dean had started around the same time.

Speaker 2: 10:29

She started in January.

Speaker 2: 10:30

I was promoted to the associate dean in February and we push a lot of change in the school. We push for sustainability, the introduction of sustainability in school, wanting to ensure that every student less with the underpinning and that ground based knowledge of what sustainability means and how to incorporate that in their work so that they can leave and graduate and leave us to become better designers, better makers, with sustainability and knowledge. And just before she left and just before I moved into this new role, we introduced a profession and it was fascinating because we knew again, we could see on the horizon that this is becoming so important to us. This was before the pandemic, before everybody was forced to become digital. Our history is 117, almost 118 years old, and it started off with the emergence of two colleges, two trade schools, in fact, for girls. And that's how London College of Fashion was born, and I'm now part of that history where I can rewrite, you know, I can write that new future for and it's exciting, it's a real privilege. It's a real privilege to be here.

Speaker 1: 11:53

I can just envision our younger John sat in his bedroom with a copy of Vogue envisioning his career in the fashion industry. It sounds like you've seen quite a lot from you know Western fashion, right through to the other side of the world, out in Hong Kong. There you mentioned in your story that London is very much about creativity and freedom. There's a heavier business side on the American market. Do you think that's still true in today's fashion system?

Speaker 2: 12:29

I mean, the system has shifted so much in terms of really the consumer market exploded in China. I mean, when I first started out in the industry, china didn't even feature on the map as a location for luxury fashion. Of course luxury fashion existed there. It was, you know, more localized. There were people who were traveling to Europe or to North America to see a main fashion, but in terms of access local access it wasn't, it was to fail. So they had to travel, they had to go elsewhere to kind of feed that. But then when, I would say, you know, because mid to early to early to mid 2000s, that's when Western brands would notice that there's this massive burgeoning market and that market were becoming much more wealthier, they were able to afford things, they were able to kind of indulge themselves, and quite rightly able to indulge themselves in products that had never been made available for them. It was fantastic to see that.

Speaker 1: 13:45

Are there any like nightmare stories that you can share? I mean, you know, I think it's very interesting that how you say that in the past you know China, hong Kong, what are necessarily seen as a luxury market, of course, now is such a key market for all of the luxury players around the world. How does that make you feel you know for the viewers and for the listeners that come to see the screen, john is of Chinese origins. How does that make you feel as somebody coming from that part of the world?

Speaker 2: 14:14

I think, I think it's fantastic, I think it's a. I feel like it was always. It's always been overlooked and it's always been dismissed, and you know, we as a culture had been, has been very much misunderstood. And there is a quite clear distinction, though, in terms of the Hong Kong. What was the Hong Kong market and the rest of China? When I first started out, when I first moved to Hong Kong and the factory was based in China, so I had to travel across the border into China Hong Kong was different because it was in a much more, I would say, it was in a position that had links to the West. Obviously it was. You know, it was a colony, also in the UK. So fashion, you know, luxury fashion brands had already existed, but it didn't that that that wasn't made as really made available to those in in China. It's just been very much been very much understood.

Speaker 2: 15:19

I used to go into into luxury stores. They were really excited. Yeah, when I was young they were really excited oh, you're Japanese, you must have money. But they're like, that was Chinese, they didn't bother. You know, they, they, they, they think, oh, you're not going to spend anything. And they were always on the watch, always on the lookout, thinking. You know, they pretty thought I was going to steal their ideas and copy their ideas. Probably will be the first person to say that, or a designer of my generation to say that, unfortunately. But then you know within a couple of short years.

Speaker 2: 15:57

It was a very different game, a very different game. There was a, there was an acknowledgement and there's also a lot more. Yeah, there's a lot more respect now for the Chinese to assume that, and that is because of the, the way that fashion has kind of ingrained into the, the, the kind of psyche of the Chinese population. You know, not only are they consumers, but they're also the manufacturers. And it reminds me of a conversation that I had when I was 16 in the factory making corporate wear, and they said oh, we make jackets.

Speaker 2: 16:34

I guess I can see that that's all, that's the only thing that you can make. So well, what about the trousers? What about skirts? And they said, oh, we make that in China because that's their skill level, that's the only thing that they can make. That factory doesn't exist anymore in the UK and that's because the skill level that they had in China, it just increased warp speed. They were able to learn quickly, learn what luxury fashion is, being able to manufacture luxury fashion has meant that, I think, that the local population really understand the product, really understand the product and not just look at it from the lens of you know kind of how the marketing lens. They're able to understand and really appreciate the product itself. I think that's really fascinating.

Speaker 1: 17:34

I think it's very interesting there. You know how fashion in some ways has broken down quite a lot of those borders that you were mentioning there those of you that have never actually been to Hong Kong but also my family is from as well it's kind of interesting because you do arrive in Hong Kong, you don't need a visa, especially if you have a UK passport, but then to cross the border into Shenzhen, for example, you need a visa to get there, and I think that just tells you so much about how the system has set up and also how, in some ways, you know you mentioned that Hong Kong was a colony of the UK and how it did link everything together with with Western fashion, but now it has broken down in some ways. When we're thinking about the London College of Fashion, a huge part of the student population is made up of international students, especially coming from East as well. So it is a key part of the fashion education ecosystem, especially at LCF, and of course, as I mentioned right at the start, they're coming because the London College of Fashion does have a reputation being ranks number one. You know it certainly was. For me, choosing which university to go to, that was one of the draws as well. It had a very strong reputation back then. Music You're featured in chapter two of the book Fashion Tech Applied, where we do talk about the next evolution of design.

Speaker 1: 19:01

I'm just going to quote you from the book, and actually it's featured as an interview. So we're looking for specialisms and companies and not just looking for a fashion designer. So we're referring to here fashion companies recruiting graduates. They're looking for specific skills and competent tech operators across a variety of hardware and software. So for the LCF, what does it mean I guess for you as well, joe what does it mean to be a fashion student in, you know, 2024, and how does tech and innovation play into that?

Speaker 2: 19:30

The first thing I have to say is that any fashion student and I still consider myself a fashion student, I'm sure you do too you know there's so much to learn and there's a start learning because the industry is I mean, the industry is known to change. We change every season, at the very least but we have to learn with, you know, the development stuff in the industry and what is very evident now is those things. Some things are happening kind of adjacent to the industry. You know, new tech, new software and this actually going to make an impact of what's going to happen in the fashion industry itself, because you know, we talk a lot about using technologies that are close to 3D.

Speaker 2: 20:20

I came from somewhere that I came from, you know, understand, I came from that kind of traditional looking at digital pattern cutting, but they've taken inspiration from CGI, I think, and it's on some Hollywood, and I think that kind of merging of this tech is going to lead the way. You know we have to work with that and the students will need to carry on learning. You know what we teach them is just a start and I want them to realize and want them to understand that this is just the start of your career and I'm not going to teach you everything that will last you until the day that you retire. Absolutely not. I mean, that would be terrible for boring.

Speaker 1: 21:05

Yeah, and I completely agree with you. I don't think you can ever stop learning in fashion. There's just so much time All the time. It is a massive and huge industry. I always remember, though, my first day on campus, when I set foot on that campus. It did, can I give me chills, almost for our listeners? Just for context, john and I come from the same part of the world in the UK, and you know, as John alluded to being coming from a small town to a very huge. The capital of the UK is a huge deal to go into fashion school, and it always gives me chills to go back to that moment. Back then, it was John Prince Street, off Oxford Street, so Oxford Circus, that was the previous building, and you could like just get his bus and the NHG. Don't know if you remember the first day you ever set foot on campus.

Speaker 2: 21:55

Yeah, I mean, at my first down campus, I remember walking in and thinking this I didn't know anybody, I didn't go with friends, and I just I walked in and I thought, god, should this really just feel like home? And it just feels like it's something that belongs to me, and it's a feeling that I've never shaken up. And even when I returned, in 31st of March 2014, I walked into the building and I got exactly the same feeling, and that feeling was that people understood me. I understood what they were doing. We are all striving towards that, that kind of unknown. We're all working on something that's going to be that potentially has a massive impact across the industry, the world, whatever you want to call it. It has that massive impact.

Speaker 1: 22:55

But in some ways, moving to the new structure building especially, as you said, lcf has been around for more than 100 years. You as the current generation of fashion education leaders.

Speaker 1: 23:08

It's almost starting again, but now you have a blank slate, a very big blank slate with this massive building Very, very big You'll be able to shape it as you want, and when I was there visiting Matthew Drinkwater, as I'd previously said, the head of the fashion innovation agency LCF, you do get that sense of wow, this is being. It is being molded, but also has a legacy at the same time, which I think is a very interesting mix of all of that. Matthew mentioned with his team at AFA. They're siting between commercial and academia. They are very front-external facing. I want to get your point of view, though, john, working on the academic side of things how do you see fashion tech and how does the work at FAA? Can I reflect in the curriculum that you're building out?

Speaker 2: 24:01

I mean the fashion innovation agency is very much there and LCF gateway to the external. We do all these external projects in the FAA that I think are very, very exciting. I think Matthew Drinkwater brings in a huge amount of technology but also experience and knowledge to fashion tech and that is for us a really great example of the possibilities of what fashion can do In terms of what it does to the curriculum. It's certainly something that we would reference. We can't introduce all of that at a massive scale more than one goal because what Matthew does is quite unique. There's a lot of research and development. Some parts of his work is quite embryonic, so introducing that into all of our curriculum will be difficult. But that for us is a huge gateway to tap in that kind of inspiration around fashion tech and certainly we have partnered with the academic side, has partnered with the FAA on lots of different projects and that in itself has inspired us to introduce more tech into our curriculum.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Fashion is notoriously difficult as an industry to break into but, most importantly, to stay in that industry. There's a very high turnover in the industry itself. Many of my friends have come in and out of the industry. They didn't even try because they find it so difficult to enter it. All of it is about networking and who you know. So with all these graduates or even individuals that are already working in the industry, how should they stay competitive from a skill set?

Speaker 2: 25:51

perspective. Literally market your skills. That's the first thing. Everybody has skills, and sure that you take the time to do a skills audit and really think about what are the most marketable parts of yourself. It could be a freelancer or you could be five jobs, and you always need to do that. I do that. I do that regularly too, and look at what I've done over the year and I really take stock of where I've grown. So it's important to kind of chart that growth. It's very easy to kind of go through and not and I just think that, oh yeah, I'll remember, I'll remember, but you have to take certain steps to chart that growth, chart where you've come, where you started to find you, and it's really important that you do that. I think it's important for everybody to do that.

Speaker 2: 26:43

I think it's then considering the compositiveness of the industry. That's never going to go away, and it's not just a, it's not just in the fashion industry. So don't think that you're entering an industry that is particularly difficult. I think most industries are also the same too, especially if you're one. But in terms of making yourself a better service, we're using this in this society where there's sort of no appreciation for those for working at a job and staying in a job and I'd stay in that for a very long time Sometimes you do have to repart or repart to move on, and that part of that is learning new skills. And especially now when we are or working in a much more digital environment, it gets really important that we are always updating our tech skills. And it's not to say that you have to be proficient, even an expert, in all of the tech skills, but actually having an appreciation and understanding how it works will make it easier for you to work in teams that understand those tech, using that tech skills to do, for example, do patterns, digitizing, embroidery or digital prints, for example, so that you can have that conversation with them. So if it's not specifically your area, that's okay. It's not going to be proficient in the essence thing, but understanding that and appreciating that we said you are much better. You're a much better child to work with a much bigger team. That can make you much more creative. And it's not just a fashion design too. In our fashion business school you mentioned the fashion analytics and forecasting.

Speaker 2: 28:37

Understanding data is increasingly important in the fashion industry. All right, there are some brands that use it relatively well. I think IndieTex, for example, have very much pointed that the high-speed market that relies a lot on using data to help them design, to help them be more sustainable, and that takes a huge amount of investment. But it also takes a huge amount of investment in ensuring that the teams are very resistant to you. How's that right-staff development that's like to your profession, that that can take them to that next level. So a brand retailer is doing that.

Speaker 2: 29:23

We're currently working on a quite a big project with our partners in Turkey and it's to support them with the digital translation of the apparel sector in Turkey and I'm their principal investigator. I work with a team of experts that can help deliver training in digital technology to trainers and to smaller medium enterprises in Turkey so that we can upstill their workforce. They are upstill their workforce Because in Turkey, they've noticed that they still rely very much on the traditional manufacturing skills. They know that they need to transform. So that's why they brought us in, because we have that like key expertise, and for me, that's getting absolutely fascinating to be able to support them with that transformation, Because I'm learning so much. I'm learning so much in terms of what's happening in the fashion sector in Turkey and their key role in supplying the world, both Asia. Yet they're in that strategic location where they can supply both Asia and Western Europe and North America.

Speaker 1: 30:43

I like how you said at the start of your answer. There, a very actionable recommendation is to do a skills order. We actually do talk about this in chapter one of the book, just as a side note to our listeners. I did not pay John to say that, it was just a coincidence. But yes, if you want to get into the specialist of fashion tech, I think doing the skills order is probably the first port of call and seeing where are those gaps. But also, what new software or new technologies can you learn to ensure that you can almost sidestep or create a new pathway for your career in the industry itself? And, as you're saying, john, you're continuously learning, as well as through the projects that you're doing at LCF. I just wanted to finish off this episode with a quick fire round of questions. So the first answer that comes to your head are you ready?

Speaker 2: 31:35

I am ready. Yes, go ahead. Have you read fashion tech applied? Yet? I am reading it. So, yes, I'm finding it absolutely fascinating. I just love how you know, in a way, you are both letting us know what is happening in the future but also a real good critique of what has come before. I mean, I find it really fascinating. So I just write such an amazing book. You're very much welcome, john.

Speaker 1: 32:01

You're enjoying reading it. But I also think you say the keyword there critique, and I think with many people in the innovation field or technology field, they're always singing the amazes of new technologies, but sometimes it just doesn't work and I think we also need to reflect on those moments as well as with anything within fashion, you know.

Speaker 2: 32:23

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think all tech needs critiquing, because that's how you innovate. It seems I've seen technology become obsolete because they haven't been able to critique themselves, so they haven't kept up and it becomes obsolete. So you're doing that and you're certainly doing the right thing.

Speaker 1: 32:39

Absolutely your favorite fashion program.

Speaker 2: 32:43

My favorite fashion program. It has to be close for you to get a moment, if that's what you're asking, I meant a favorite fashion academic program at LCF. No, no, no. You can't make me choose. You cannot make me.

Speaker 1: 33:00

But if you had to choose?

Speaker 2: 33:02

if I ask you to choose, it will have to be fashion jewelry, because when I and I know it's not the song's slow. I think the reason why I chose fashion jewelry is because when I first arrived, it had six students on the court. It's now got about eight teeth students on the court and it's grown massively. And what I love about the fashion jewelry courts is that they're not designing engagement writing race, they're designing fashion jewelry. They're designing jewelry that works with the body and the materials that they use they don't use. I should just jump to that.

Speaker 2: 33:41

They don't use very expensive metals, but we push them to be sustainable found materials. They use a lot of recycled and upcycled materials. I want to say something fascinating is that they used a lot of technology with their in their design work. They use Rhino. Rhino is this 3D design program where they can then make fortune. Use 3D prints. 3d print their mock-ups, and that's amazing. They're able to see things done so quickly. I think in the past, jewelry is such a glorious process and it took so long to get any sort of samples done. Now, within a few hours they've got something. It doesn't take days and it's absolutely fascinating to see that connection between that hardware, so the jewelry working on the body and working with clothing, and I'm really fascinated.

Speaker 1: 34:41

Did you talk about physical fashion design?

Speaker 2: 34:44

No, we can't ignore physical. I would come ignore the physical, but I know digital fashion design is here to stay Because it's all right. Because it's all right, I think at the moment I think digital fashion design but I think a lot of people will shout at me quite angry me through the bullet past Probably. I think digital fashion design is such a leader and it's not something that we can ignore, and I think that digital fashion design will enhance the physical fashion design. That's why I chose digital.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Best piece of advice that anyone wanted to break into the fashion industry Most of the other bit.

Speaker 2: 35:29

I think you need to persevere. It's and don't end up in a sub learning. It is an industry that's done everything from agriculture to advertising and everything in between, and that's what I find fascinating. Now, fashion doesn't just either sit in a studio or in a factory. Fashion exists everywhere around us, and the great fashion designer, the great fashion marketer, the great fashion community that will know that it doesn't just exist in one location and that it is. It has a sex of free body and there are so many people feeds into the fashion industry, and that's what I think is what makes it really fascinating for me, and don't ever lose that curiosity.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Thank you so much for your time, john, thank you, thank you for inviting me to join this podcast and have a lot of fun today.

Speaker 2: 36:29

Thank you,