As for trends, it’s all about the shoulder - not just hang ‘em wide Eighties style, though there was plenty of that at the young end from TopShop Unique to Armand Basi One and Fashion East - but also high-rise puffs and curves at Giles,
Roksanda Ilincic
Roksanda Ilincic and Erdem. Modern graphic lines and geometry are everywhere too, in strong black outlines at Christopher Kane or played out in sheer and opaque corsetry styles at Richard Nicoll and Jasper Conran. Knitwear gets a big billing, in body-conscious laddered and textured style at new name Mark Fast, in Robocop meets space warrior kit at Louise Goldin. There are clothes for real life too - smart but sexy gilt-buttoned and satin-bowed dresses and suits in Designer of the Year Luella’s feminine and witty take on Chanel style, and in the simply graphic, modern cuts and draped jerseys from Osman Yousefzada and young Australian Josh Goot.
New stars - Erdem Moralioglu has been around for a year or two but this collection really put him on the map - fabulous, feminine dresses either with a full skirt or slimline with soft, full sleeves, in a mix of his own, deceptively sweet but slightly eerie, floral prints and heavy silk, some with delicately appliqued lace and embroidery.
Exquisite, couture-quality work and great cutting - some of the best occasion pieces in town, but won’t be cheap. Kinder Aggugini is a new name with a great pedigree - Galliano, Versace etc - and his own very distinctive look of brilliant tailoring mixed with the softest, lightest dresses with his own prints layering florals, spots and inky dip-dye. Try a gorgeous chiffon evening dress under a beautifully-cut jacket with delicate stitching detail and a hint of jet-beaded lace at the hem. Of the first-timers, Mary Katrantzou’s amazing prints based on the sensuous lines of scent bottles, plus assured cutting and great, graphic jewels, and Holly Fulton’s astonishing bright dresses with Art Deco embellishment of vivid enamel or Swarovski crystal are the ones to watch.
Old stars - Aquascutum dresses women, not waifs, and showed on a procession of 40-plus models to prove it. Led out by the perennially elegant Stella Tennant (who isn’t quite 40),
Stella Tennant - Aquascutum
they included Yasmin Le Bon, Susie Bick, Cecilia Chancellor and Jenny Howarth, all looking fab in dashing full-skirted trenchcoats and cosy fur sweaters and with far more personality than today’s identikit faded blondes.
New openings - Fashion Week is the perfect time to make a splash with a new shop in these tricky times. First up was Browns Shoes in Brook Street as the boutique turned over its former bridal ship to all the shoe brands we know and love from the main shop and the website, with special emphasis on ultra-talented young Brit Nicholas Kirkwood and his signature raked-back platforms and elegantly carved heels. Then Joseph opened the first of its radical redesigns on Westbourne Grove - all white space and grey limed wood and, in addition to its upgraded casual chic own-label range, there’s a mind-blowing collection of hip designers - Balmain, Maison Martin Margiela, Zac Posen, Marni (no prints!), David Szeto, Zero Maria Cornejo, Charles Anastase etc. And find high-octane glamour at Azzaro on Mount Street - one of France’s best-known evening wear labels now designed by the talented Vanessa Seward, who has worked a design project with Jemima Khan, one girl who knows how to dress the glamour lifestyle.
New tights - bored with black opaques? Give them some spin with the gold seam and spider’s web (her logo) design by hit high shoes designer Charlotte Olympia, or a scattering of open gilt eyelets with tiny rings attached, as spotted at Bora Aksu’s show of tough-romantic little dresses.
Best parties - two go head to head - the opening of Stephen Jones’s hat exhibition at the V&A where everyone wore a hat in honor of one of the world’s most imaginative milliners and curators, and the Design Museum dinner to celebrate Puma’s sponsorship of students at Central St.Martin’s college, hosted by Puma’s creative consultant and fashion genius Hussein Chalayan. Guests chatted round chic, spacious long tables and then had the chance of a post-prandial wander through the Museum’s excellent current exploration of Chalayan’s work.
London Fashion Week billed itself as “celebrating 25 years of of British fashion”, which came as a bit of a surprise to those who reckon our fashion heritage goes back just a little further. Remember Mary Quant in the Sixties? Not to mention Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes in the Seventies plus a small-scale version of the London fashion exhibition which started in 1974. More properly, it celebrated London Fashion Week in its present form, and seeing the way it is now - with over fifty shows and a major exhibition - compared with how it started, that’s something to bang the drum about. Being squeezed by New York running later into one day less than usual only did it good, with extra vitality and even more going on than usual making for a really buzzy atmosphere. The British Fashion Council went on the offensive and flew in journalists from sceptical places like the States and France, who appeared to like what they saw and got invited to more parties in four days than in a week back home. Plus there is more back-up than ever, from the industry and private initiatives, to help our talented young designers establish proper businesses. So, even with a slightly smaller exhibition and some designers opting for static presentations rather than shows, this season the attitude is upbeat and, as ever with our designers, economic necessity is the mother of creative invention.