5 Things to Know About Anze Ermenc

Our annual MA Show showcases an exciting variety of work by emerging and established artists and designers, who have undertaken postgraduate study with us.

To celebrate the show, we'll be focusing on some of our favourite pieces from this year's exhibition, as well as the opinions and experiences of the students that have created them.

In our latest instalment MA Fashion: Fashion Graphics student Anze Ermenc shares his explorations of fashion campaigns, videos and photographs with us, as well as what lead him to study with us. 

He came to fashion through a graphic design education 

'As a graphically educated visual designer I have always tried to include fashion in my university and self-directed projects, from visual identities for clothing brands to fashion photography and illustration. It was not until I started working as a fashion editor for a contemporary online publication, New Edge Magazine, that I realised creative direction and styling is the field I would like to work in.'

He had dreams of working and studying in Britain 

'Having no formal fashion education, I decided to do a postgraduate course to gain a basic understanding of the fashion industry and establish what skills and knowledge I would need to specialize in my chosen field. Slovenia, my home country, wasn’t able to offer me what I was looking for and I decided to follow my dreams of working and studying in Britain. I saw Manchester and the School of Art as an appropriate stepping-stone from my home town to my dream.'

Postgraduate study has given him the confidence 'to start calling myself a creative director' 

'I used my postgraduate year to research, experiment and develop ideas to critically engage with and challenge my subject, as well as gain a personal understanding around fashion creative direction. My postgraduate studies allowed me to evaluate what position I would wish to practice in and where my work is positioned in my creative area.'

Manchester School of Art gave me the freedom, connections, opportunities, facilities and guidance, as a postgraduate student, to focus on my personal research and the confidence to start calling myself a creative director.'

Through Fashion Art Direction he explores to 'unseen, unfashionable and unpopular' 

My work is about contrast, collaboration and storytelling. I focus on the unseen, unfashionable and unpopular; the themes of my practice often reflect my current mood and the current state of the world around me. I wish to challenge people’s opinions, start conversations and stimulate their thought process with every piece I produce.

The photographs and videos I direct are carefully planed, often influenced by old paintings in combination with minimalism and pop art. I aim to be inclusive, telling stories people can relate to or question through fashion and, more recently, documentary-styled imagery.'

His work expands upon the model-photographer relationship of a fashion photograph, campaign or video 

'My final MA project is concerned with challenging people’s perception of what fashion is and how much work goes in to a photograph, campaign or a video. Taking a step back from the model-photographer relationship and showcasing every individual involved, in the shoot and in their element, allows me to narrate the story of what happens on the set of a fashion shoot, from an idea to the postproduction.'

See behind the scenes of Anze's project.

To find out more about the MA Show and students that exhibited at it, visit: www.art.mmu.ac.uk/mashow/

Want to hear from more exhibiting designers and artists? You can find previous pieces from our MA Show featured artists and designers series on our news page.

You can also find out more about Anze and his work on his website: http://anzeermenc.com