Within about ten minutes of arriving at London Fashion Week, you being to understand the fashion industry’s masochistic obsession with wearing skyscraper heels. From Daks at 9am, to the dancefloor of some afterparty some sixteen hours later, the international fashion elite totter around in shoes that that allow them, primarily, to see all (especially if you’re crammed into the standing area of the shows), and to be seen by all. The Somerset House courtyard, where most of the action takes place, is swarming with angular sunglasses (yes, even in February), huge neon shaggy furs, headache-inducing patterns and seven-inch tall shoes. People-watch for long enough and you’ll spot outfits that are as well put together as anything you’ll see on the catwalk, but these tend to be lost in a sea of would-be fashionistas vying for the flurry of flashing lenses’ attention. Streetstyle blogs have a lot to answer for.
My Saturday morning at Fashion Week began with Antipodium, a London-based, Australian-made label, self-described as “a contemporary fashion brand for creative minds”. Despite bearing the dubious title of ‘Sex, Lies and CCTV’, the show itself was a moderate success. Models paraded through the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden – a vast, industrial feeling venue – wearing a slick fusion of day-glo plastics and deep-hued velvet. Slinky shift dresses came in iridescent lilac, ochre, hot pink and lime green, and were paired with high-heeled velvet boots in deep red, silver and electric blue. Reportedly inspired by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, the collection capitalized on the fashion worlds’ ongoing obsession with the nineties; make-up was minimal except the odd pop of shimmer on the eyes, and a slick, low-slung ponytail gave the collection a casual but polished finish. Not world-changing, but not a bad start to the day either.
We collectively wander back to Somerset House, where Jasper Conran is showing at 12. The invites are rectangular slabs of luminous orange perspex, and the stage set up resembles this: the models enter the runway through an asymmetrical composition of tangerine quadrangles. In the queue outside, I spot several trilbies which, if a fashion show can be judged by its invitees, is never a good start. But there isn’t a trilby in sight on the runway, thank god. Just a modernist, elongated interpretation of the twenties cloche hat, and some minimal shifts and tailored skirt-suits in slinky fabrics. The opening looks are grey, heather, and taupe, but the palette becomes progressively more adventurous, before long exploding into acidic yellows, greens, and hot pinks paired with radioactive oranges in an all-encompassing embrace of brights. The drop-waisted sixties silhouette keeps things fresh, and suits geometric detailing, like the cut-out circles that crop up towards the end. The collection climaxes with a contemporary flapper-style sequined shift dress in fuchsia; it’s a fresh, modern injection into the sequin trend that’s been dominating our wardrobes all winter.
Conran wasn’t the only one to bring traditionally springtime colours into a winter collection. Two hours later, John Rocha infused his signature black and white with salmon pinks and orange shoes, pea green and coral. But his evasive, trapezoid silhouettes were topped with gothic black net veils, swirling around the models’ up-dos. The collection was populated by ethereal shapes, rouched-in waists, trouser-suits and cocooning coats. Crochet, lace, and sheer, long skirts captivated the tortured romantic in all of us, while hints of sparkle in some of the looks kept our magpie-ish eyes twinkling.
After enough time sitting in the courtyard of Somerset House, you get tired of watching Made in Chelsea stars get papped, so I decided to venture away from the main site for the second half of the day. Sixties-inspired Irish designer Orla Kiely and husband-and-wife design duo Bolzoni & Walsh were having presentations in a gallery near Tottenham Court Road, so I ventured north a little.
Bolzoni & Walsh are a relatively new name on the fashion circuit, and their forth collection occupied the ground-floor of the gallery. We’re immediately confronted with two models sat astride some beat-up vintage motorbikes, and trolleys loaded with cans of Jack Daniels & cola. It screams ‘rocker chick’, but this Americana schtick sells the duo short. Although their collection does have a gritty, On The Road feel, the strength of it lies in the simplicity of the cuts: impeccably tailored leather jackets, minimal panel dresses, light silk shirts, swishing velvet skirts. It’s more grown up, and more well-structured than these bike-straddling young uns imply. I strike up conversation with Katie Walsh, one half of the design duo, and she seems to express a similar sentiment: I remark to her that the collection is very Americana, and she replies, “yes, but it’s also very English. It harks back to the American road trip, but the collection is much more grown up and pared down. You can definitely tell it’s European.”
Walsh formed the label two years ago, after having cut her teeth at Alexander McQueen. When her initial design partner dropped out of the fashion industry to become a full-time mum, she paired up with her husband, Simon Bolzoni. “We work very well together”, she coos. “We share everything, and spend all our time together, so it’s nice to channel that into a creative platform”.
Upstairs, Orla Kiely is reinventing the catwalk show with a presentation that borders on performance art. Part of the room is decked out with sixties office equipment – filing cabinets, rotary telephones – and then in comes a stream of sashaying models who hang their coats up on pegs, sit down at their desks, type, pass around notes, answer phones and re-live the lives of young office workers some fifty-or-so years ago. Across a projector screen behind them come extracts from The Best of Everything. It’s captivating to watch, and gives the mid-century inspired collection (a fuzzy, wintery mix of wool, sheepskin, velvet and silk) an energetic burst of life that po-faced runway walking never could. “We’ve shown in this way for a couple of seasons now,” Orla tells me. “We did a tea dance for last Autumn/Winter. I think it’s a more creative way of showing, and of getting a feel of the collection across. I think the models are really enjoying it too!”
More fun is to be had over in Seven Dials, where Fred Butler has a pop-up shop and fashion film screening. I wait outside the venue for the opening at six, accompanied by an equally enthusiastic flurry of purple-haired girls and pink-coated boys. By ten past six the shop’s still not open, so I venture a few doors down to Triumph instead. After twenty minutes of being the only person in the queue not wearing Spice Girls-inspired platform trainers, pastel hair dye and stick-on face jewels, I’m starting to feel left out.
Triumph have collaborated with a number of London Fashion Week’s gems: Fyodor Golan, Matthew Williamson, Louise Gray and Felder Felder have all contributed one-off designs, as well as the brand’s long term guest-designer Helena Christensen. They’re also the official underwear supplier of London Fashion Week, happily saving models’ dignity from a world of sheer and bodycon dresses. The AW13 collection is all about making shapewear sexy again, banishing the words ‘Bridget Jones pants’ from underwear drawers and replacing them with sleek, high-waisted skimpies that are as spine-tingling as they are forgiving. The champagne-infused opening is a celebration of the female form, and comes accompanied by an exhibition of designs from the brands’ archives, spanning back over a hundred years, and taking in many a landmark in underwear-history. “We were the first to introduce t-shirt bras,” the show’s presenter tells us. “In the sixties, when women were burning their bras, we designed this, and they loved it!
Back at Fred Butler, things are finally starting to kick off as the guest DJs (Rivah Kray and Larry B) arrive. The crowd is as intimidatingly fashionable as before, but the cupcakes are flowing, and the collection is all about pop-tastic fun, plastic shapes and bright colours. Downstairs, the film is being screened. It’s a colourful collaboration with one of our favourite fashion photographers, Saga Sig, and titled ‘Wham! Bam! Tamgram Famalam’. “Tamgram is an ancient Chinese game,” Ms. Butler tells us. “I made my own version of it, and the whole collection is based on that.”
Fred Butler – actually a tall blonde lady, if you’re being misled by the name – shot to fame when Lady Gaga decided to use a certain blue telephone headpiece of hers for a certain music video. “It was amazing”, she says. “It took everything to an international exposure and audience. But it was a bit overwhelming. That was certainly a big push.” But having designed for Gaga before, who does she design for now? “Anyone that enjoys fun things, and that doesn’t take fashion too seriously”, she smiles. Hungry to learn where one of the most hyped designers of Fashion Week will be partying, I then ask what she’s most looking forward to this weekend. “Fashion East, to see Ashley Williams. And the opening of Moschino tomorrow.” I guess we’ll continue our weekend there, then.
