FASHION designers who have recently collaborated with Vivienne Westwood used children’s handmade clothes for their recent photoshoot.

Two designers fell in love with the ‘eclectic’ clothes made by the children from The Fashion School in North Road, Brighton and used them for their photo shoot in Kiev, Ukraine in August.

The students at The Fashion School, aged from six to 18 designed and created their own clothes for children.

James Theseus Buck and Luke Brooks from Rottingdean Bazaar, whose work has been used this year by fashion star Vivienne Westwood in Paris Fashion Week, used the garments made by the children for their photoshoot for King Kong magazine, a publication dedicated to showcasing the work of ‘ground-breaking artists’.

They flew out to Kiev to photograph child model “Uli” dressed in the outfits made by the children.

The photos of the children’s clothes, taken by Annie Collinge, made the front page of this months edition.

Caroline Gration, director of The Fashion School said: “The designers really liked our approach and our ethos.

“The liked our eclectic look and the way we focus on supporting individual creativity.

“They loved everything that the children made and they took everything created by the youngsters for their photoshoot with Uli.”

Caroline said children are often assessed in everything they do, but her fashion school gives them a chance to do something creative without having to follow a particular syllabus.

She said: “There are a lot of silly rules in fashion but this photo shoot was fun and fully supportive of individual creativity. It was a perfect collaboration.

“The young ones are fearless and come up with great ideas.

“Everyone really benefited from this project with James and Luke and I hope to do future projects with them.”

Rebecca Latimer of The Fashion School said the project was a great success because James and Luke like to work with aspects of fashion which are ‘outside of conventional fashion magazine norms’, such as using clothes made by young children rather than designer clothes.

Luke and James said they have always had their eye on the Brighton based fashion school to work with for projects.

They enjoy involving the community in their work, as seen in their recent collaboration with Vivienne Westwood where they settled on placing a community bench in Golden Square, Rottingdean after she showcased their art work at Paris Fashion Week.

They are also known for dressing a local Zumba class in their handmade designer outfits.

Luke said: “We have always been interested in The Fashion School and this seemed like a good opportunity to work with them.

“The whole project felt very ‘real’ because we were using clothes that were designed and made by children in our community.

“We were surprised at how slick the children were. Their clothes were great. To me they really didn’t look like they were made by children, especially by some as young as six.”