New York down.
London down.
Milan just down.
Only Paris left to go - and what a fashion month it's been so far...
But in the constant whirl of shows, front rows and jaw dropping collection after collection, are you beginning to find that everything's starting to blur around the edges a little? Time to take a step back and consider what you'll be filling your wardrobe with come September? Well luckily we have a little guest blog treat for you today - fashion writer, Caitlin Leslie of awesome new blog, The Aperitif, has distilled London Fashion Week down into the five key takeaways from the A/W 14 shows...
London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2014
spanned five days, 105 shows (60 on-schedule, 45 off), countless Starbucks runs
and 30 grey whippets. It was the Fashion Week that saw Kendall Jenner sit next
to Anna Wintour on the front row, TomFord knock off Jay-Z, and monogrammed capes take centre stage at Burberry. But
now that the circus has moved on to Paris via Milan, I’ve looked back on the Somerset
House whirlwind and picked out the five things you really need to know about.
The
Accessory
Images:
Mulberry.com
Thanks to a hugely hyped launch event on
Sunday, Mulberry’s collaboration with Cara Delevingne was one of Fashion Week’s
biggest news stories. Everyone was expecting a bag named after the model, given
the wild success of Mulberry’s Alexa and Del Rey styles, but instead we got a
whole Cara collection.
Three bags, each of them a riff on Cara’s tomboy
streak, can be worn as a backpack or carried by a shorter handle at the top. In
camo, quilted or studded colour ways, they’re all stamped with a tiny ‘Made in
England’ script, just like the tattoo on her foot. "In that first meeting
I was quite strong about wanting it to be practical,” she told Vogue,
“something for a modern-day woman - or man -and not just doing one job."
So the moonlit forest photo call at
Claridge’s, where Delevingne was barefoot and surrounded by whippets, was an
unexpectedly floaty, feminine choice. It mirrored Mulberry’s heritage more than
the bags’ androgynous elements, and proved that even Cara isn’t calling every
shot yet.
The
Colour
Images: Caitlin Leslie and Style.com
Sugar pink might have been tipped as the colour for Spring/Summer2014, but at London Fashion Week the most stylish spectators had already
traded candy floss for layers of blue. Fuzzy pastel coats were worn like capes
on the cobbles of Somerset House, and royal blue appeared on voluminous
trousers and skirts. There was denim too, doubled up and worn in the most
mannish of ways, mixed in with leopard print or grey tailoring.
On the runway a rich ultramarine appeared
at Peter Pilotto, Sister by Sibling and Richard Nicoll, who started his show
with a succession of three all-blue looks. There were flashes of sky at
Roksanda Ilincic while a dark teal infected Burberry’s autumnal palette. And
Marios Schwab gave navy a newfound sexiness, embroidering sheer layers and
bomber jackets with silver constellations.
The high street presentations were all over
it too, with Whistles adopting the moody blues in its block prints and Hunter
working a bright Yves Klein shade into its first Fashion Week show. At Topshop
Unique, the mammoth Tate Modern runway opened with a mohair overcoat, wrapped
over a matching cobalt sweater.
The
Show
Images: Style.com
Christopher Kane was one of the most
talked-about shows of the week, even before it started. On a bleak and rainy
Monday morning, there were the inevitable comparisons to J.W. Anderson, who had
shown an earthy, romantic and highly sculpted collection two days earlier. Both
are young, home-grown designers (Anderson is Irish and Kane is from Scotland,
earning them a SixNations analogy from Business of Fashion) with eponymous labels, who have
accepted their first foreign investment (from LVMH and Kering respectively) in the
last year.
But with his explosion of ideas on the
runway, Kane managed to outshine all of the speculation. He has a reputation
for working theme after theme into a single collection, and that refusal to
focus on just one concept has become one of his greatest strengths. This time
there was ruching almost everywhere: on PVC trims, pale yellow knitwear and
scrunchy grey dresses. The botanical motifs from his Spring/Summer 2014
collection reappeared on an apron-style dress, while fluffy mink was employed as
an unexpected foil to all that PVC.
And for all its contradictions, this felt
like one of Kane’s most wearable collections. His double-breasted overcoats,
which fell to the knee with a masculine cut, showed that he can offer up
investment pieces as well as novel ideas. His final looks – dresses made of
geometric mille-feuille that fluttered as the models walked – are bound to
become some of next season’s most-wanted pieces.
The
Shoes
Images: Theguardian.com
Sophia Webster’s heartbreak hotel-themed
presentation was one of the most Instagrammed events at Fashion Week. Nicknamed
"Happily
Ever After Is So Once Upon A Time," it saw models recline in bubble baths
(with their heels sticking out of the tub, obviously) and pose with pink
feather dusters or vintage telephones. It was a Clueless-inspired take on the
Barbie dream house, complete with platinum hair extensions clipped into the
brunette models’ locks.
And the shoes were as colourful as their setting, with rose
prints, fur trims and sweetie-studded platforms. Perspex was mixed up with old
school sneaker laces, knee-high boots were made entirely of latticework and there were flashes of zebra print, made fun in a way that only
Webster could manage. Footwear presentations can easily end up buried under all
the excitement of the runway, but this was like a huge exclamation mark in-between
the shows. It reminded everyone – as if they had forgotten – why Webster’s so
quickly become London’s coolest shoe designer, as well as the most colourful.
The
New Names
Images: Style.com
Fashion East, which showcases three
breakthrough designers in a combined show every season, welcomed two new names
to the fold for Autumn/Winter 2014. Helen Lawrence and Louise Alsop showed
their collections alongside Ashley Williams (who was taking part for the final
time), and both brought something new to the runway.
Louise Alsop worked almost entirely in
monochrome, only making an exception for a few barely-there pastels. She
scribbled ‘hopeless’ and ‘loveless’ on sweatshirts and dresses with staggered
hems, planting the seeds of rebellion in unfinished necklines and wisps of
chiffon. A high-necked dress in pure white, wrapped with cords at the waist,
was a fresh take on eveningwear.
Helen Lawrence’s collection was all about
texture, with fuzzy pencil skirts and three-quarter length trousers in grey,
lilac and mint mohair. Squiggly, almost cartoon-like tops were held together
with zigzag embroidery for a flash of contradiction: hard lines etched onto a
purposefully unfinished silhouette.
With tutoring from Lulu Kennedy – director
of Fashion East and “fairygodmother” to London’s emerging talent - ahead of them, these are two names
worth memorising. The show’s alumni already includes Gareth Pugh, Jonathan
Saunders and Meadham Kirchhoff, some of the most interesting designers to show
at London Fashion Week, so the potential here is huge.
