From Bright Young Things to Designer old-timers, this weekend had examples of new trends, Brit starlets and a couple of famous faces from across the pond.
London Fashion Week designers love to cause controversy, and this weekend saw Britain’s young labels causing a stir on the catwalk. Saturday morning saw Mark Fast send his models, including two plus size girls, down the runway in his signature body-con knitwear, resulting in circulating rumours that his stylist and casting director walked out over the use of the bigger girls. Whatever the truth, the fashion press delighted in seeing more confirmation of the shift from skeletal size zeros, even if the two Mark Fast girls are so far the only example.
The night before, PPQ had caused a similar hullabaloo by using only black models to show their spring/summer collection. Once again, the decision attracted positive comments from the watching crowds, who were pleased to see girls who are still in the modelling minority take to the runway en masse. PPQ was also the first show of the season to attract mass celeb support – a fashion scrum ensued as Britain’s young hot things jostled to get in and be photographed at what is often considered one of the hottest shows of the week.
Newer British designers managed to hold their own this weekend against the fashion world’s big guns such as Vivienne Westwood, Jasper Conran and Matthew Williamson. On Saturday, Mary Katrantzou showed her signature technological prints (inspired by the art of glass-blowing) and Mark Fast and Danielle Scutt showed a ‘tough girl gets pretty’ look, using knitwear and more prints in tight, body-hugging forms. One of most well-received shows of the day was by Kinder Aggugini, a name that perhaps doesn’t roll off the tongue but whose designs have previously been referred to as mixture of ‘Coco Chanel meets the Sex Pistols’. As well as clashing patterns and bold stripes on his dresses, models wore massive Alice in Wonderland oversized hats, created by uber-milliner Stephen Jones.
Sunday saw shows seemingly working similar trends and therefore making it easy to predict what will be fashionably hot for next spring. The biggest one so far is for underwear as outerwear trend – lots of corsetry, sheer fabrics and sexiness was seen everywhere, from Louise Goldin to Jasper Conran and the well-received collection by home-comer Antonio Berardi, who aptly showed his Sunday collection in a church.
The celebrities were out in force over the weekend and came from very different sources. Brit It Girls Pixie and Peaches Geldof were front row everywhere from Julien Macdonald to Topshop’s Unique range, which also saw Kate Moss rock up with Philip Green. Last night was both the Topshop dinner and Mulberry’s party at Claridges, with Anna Wintour jetting in for dinner with Philip Green, Simon Cowell and Natalia Vodianova among others. At Mulberry, guests were happily munching on toffee apples and playing with balloons at the label’s fairground themed evening.
So far, London Fashion Week has proved its design and party credentials with aplomb, but we still have many of the hot British labels left to show, including the hotly anticipated Burberry show tomorrow night, for which anyone who’s anyone will be jetting into town. All the news from the remaining shows and parties will all be here so keep checking back!
Carli Humphries.
