By Chloe R, Year 10 Journalist Lead

It’s that time of year again, not the summer holidays, not Christmas but the 2026 NHEHS Charity Fashion Show! All jokes aside this is one of the most exciting school events of the year and one of my personal favourites! It is an incredible opportunity for any budding young designers out there and the old stagers – Year 10’s such as myself. The most exciting part of the event behind the glitz and glamour is that all of the proceeds from tickets go to charity! This year we are supporting Dress for Success, a charity dedicated to empowering women from disadvantaged backgrounds to the workplace. They provide professional clothing and interview advice to help women in greater London build up their economic confidence and help them achieve the life they deserve. It’s an amazing cause so even if you are unsure of your fashionista capabilities, you can still buy tickets to watch and cheer on your classmates and women in your area. 

I have a history of participating, alas always the bridesmaids never the bride, and have always enjoyed it, working with my friends, modelling and interpreting the sometimes cryptic themes set by the art reps. Following the Tropical theme from last year, they have chosen Masterpieces for this runway and here is all you need to know about what you can expect. 

• The fashionistas have the opportunity to create anything in relation to the theme, be it a hat, a scarf or a versace inspired ball gown. Honestly there are endless possibilities. You can make the theme your own for example.. Some are taking masterpieces to the next level with Pollock and Van Gogh inspired work and even taking inspiration from Mozart.
• The bigger and bolder the better!! This is a runway so expect some amazing eye-catching pieces that you can immediately recognise!
• An incredible teacher catwalk with mystery teacher guests, sporting outfits made by our incredible art reps
• Year 9 art classes will also be participating in their own category with a special theme!!
• You can use virtually any materials – different mediums are very much encouraged for the budding designers and the more interesting in forms of texture, colour and dimension the more exciting the piece!

For this year’s project my model Romilly, and I are creating a Van Gogh Sunflowers inspired look! We wanted to challenge ourselves with creating a piece out of our comfort zone by using a lot of structural devices. We are using a lot of fashion wire to create larger than life petals bursting out through the spine of the dress.. The vase itself is constructed of lots of ruffles above the skirt and is decorated with smaller fabric sunflowers. Romilly used embroidery on the bodice of the top and focused on refining elements of our piece to make them really well fitting!

So that’s all you need to know about this year’s incredible Charity Fashion Show! We hope you come along to support your friends and the charity and maybe, just maybe you have even been inspired to take up the opportunity to join in next year…

UPDATE: You can read more about the show here.

It was so amazing to see everyone’s creations. It was honestly so fun and everyone really walked with so much confidence and excitement to share what everyone had been tirelessly working on. The teachers were incredible and the judges were so inspirational and interesting to hear them talk about their experience and advice! We came highly commended, very exciting, but I will keep the winners a surprise to be announced in assembly!