Ah, London. A place where my inner fashion persona, Larry in Burberry, feels right at home. (As do the models, who don’t have to feel bad about not eating. #rubbishfood)
In a place known for rain, the runways at London Fashion Week were bright with colour, and designers ramped up the hope and optimism that was more subdued in New York to outrageous creative heights.
Here were the highlights.
The title sponsor was Sunglass Hut
Today’s #LFW lineup features your favorite creative directors from Pacific Sun, The Buckle, Hot Topic, and a special collaboration between Tom Ford and Spencer from Spencer’s Gifts!
My favourite look of the week was…
In an ode to the ready-to-wear line first shown at Manitowoc Fashion Week, comes this Making-a-Murderer-chic look from a designer that clearly has a Netflix subscription.
Rocky Star’s frisky wedding dress blew up Instagram
Love isn’t patient or kind back in the marriage suite with this dress. If Rocky Star were a porn star instead of a fashion designer (which his name suggests), he would only appear in pornos with piano melodies, which is to say he has an incredible knack for blending sexiness with class. What a dress.
The Burberry show was the best show of the week
Obviously, I’m biased, but there were chain-mail capes and capelettes.
Beyond providing suburban mothers new trench coats to spice up their 15-year wedding anniversary , the show (which will stay open as an art exhibit until 2/27) paid homage to famous British sculptor Henry Moore.
According to Vogue’s Suzy Menkes, the show “raised once again the question that has hovered in the air for at least three decades: Is fashion art?” Duh, Suzy. The collection challenged the human form, and featured unique curved and shoulder shaped…oh who cares?
Donald Glover was there. And If Donald’s Midas touch endorses you, you’re clearly the best in the game (See: Migos).
A close second favourite show of mine was the sequin and glittered-filled Ashish extravaganza. The whole slideshow of the collection is worth a look, but here were the two that really tickled my fashion bone. #MoreGlitterLessTwitter
Totes McSpiders
The official tote of #LFW was designed by Charlotte Olympia. On the surface, it looks pretty good as far as tote bags go. You could happily carry your Kate Spade’s to your job at Pop Sugar in the morning and your quinoa from Whole Foods on your walk home at night. When you dig a little deeper and remember the plot of Charlotte’s Web, it goes from good to great. With my apologies to E.B. White, I legitimately thought the pig Wilbur died in Charlotte’s Web, but Charlotte actually weaves nice messages about Wilbur in her web, which makes him famous, gets him a spot in the fair and ultimately saves his life. Charlotte then dies from exhaustion.
I think the parallels to fashion here are clear. With Charlotte Olympia tirelessly spinning her beautiful threads into effortlessly wearable designs, she has saved glamour from dying.
There were protests
You can always count on the Daily Mail for stories like this:
“Semi-naked models in CROCODILE masks crash London Fashion Week to protest against inhumane farming of the reptiles for the handbag industry”
I would love to know what the security guard is thinking. If they made a sequel to Eyes Wide Shut and Don Magic Juan was in it…
I absolutely love that the Daily Mail included the second picture showing off the protesters’ posteriors. It added so much journalistic-ally to the story. Never change.
Victoria Beckham showed that Kanye’s a wannabe
While Kanye gets all the attention as an artistic duel threat, dominating both music and fashion is old spice for Posh. In a smaller, cozy show, she unveiled looks from her secondary line inspired by the local streetscape, and her melancholy grays and laid back trousers gave London’s fashionistas what they want (what they really want).
Phew, I’m absolutely knackered. That’s a lot of fashion to process. I think this paragraph in Now Fashion’s day 1 summary of #LFW (written by By John-Michael O’Sullivan) summarizes the week much more eloquently than any Larry ever could.
When fashion (as Coco Chanel was so fond of saying) is something drawn from the times around us, shouldn’t it be angrier, or bleaker, or more disrupted than London’s first day allowed? Perhaps it should – but then, when it comes down to it, the simple act of making clothes in the first place is grounded in optimism. Clothes cover and comfort us; they embody our identities, and our affinities; and in a social media-driven world which makes its mind up (and then changes it) at lightning speed, they increasingly speak for us. So there was something comforting, and surprising, and ultimately inspiring, about London’s Day One rainbow coalition of designers – Estonian, Chinese, Israeli, Latvian, Polish-German, English, South African – and the way they chose to meet the season head-on with hope and optimism, instead of anxiety and fear.
Next up, Milan. If you missed the New York recap, you can read it here.