My first time at London Fashion Week was a fascinating experience. Images writer’s own.
After the frosty sub-zero chill of New York, it was a welcome relief to get to a mild London winter and attend London fashion week’s Autumn/Winter 2014 shows, showcasing the best in British creativity. Now the event is done and dusted for another season, it’s time to review the trends and stand out collections, oh and of course the best pieces of chatter from the tents.
Kendall Jenner walks for Giles
It was uncertain some of the fashion set were even going to make it to London for the first day with a snowstorm in New York and a storm over London grounding flights and diverting planes, with several of the fashion set, including Vogue‘s Anna Wintour having to land in Newcastle (6 hours drive north of London) and be chauffeured down in time. The weather has certainly been playing havoc with this show season so far!
Burberry
Fresh from making her fashion week season debut for Marc Jacobs in New York, Kendall Jenner (the stunning younger Kardashian sister) was spotted seated next to Anna Wintour at the Topshop Unique show, before making her London Fashion Week debut for brilliant London label Giles the next day. If rumours are to be believed (and there were many in the tents) it may not be too long before we see Kendall in Vogue‘s hallowed pages.
House of Holland
But back to the collections, a mix of bright young talent and industry heavyweights took to the runway this past week with the inimitable Tom Ford, iconic Burberry and legendary Vivienne Westwood all showing stellar collections. Of special note was Burberry’s gorgeous folk-inspired collection, with those beautiful monogrammed draped blankets on everyone’s wishlists for next season. The lucky models who got to wear them on the runway (including model of the moment Cara Delevigne) also got to take them home after the show, now that’s a pretty great thank you present.
Mary Katrantzou
London’s fashion week is known for it’s marvellous creativity with a somewhat kooky charm all it’s own, this was especially evidenced at Anya Hindmarch who took the audience on a particularly chic trip to the supermarket (those eccentric Kellogg’s branded handbags were pretty cool), whilst House of Holland’s debauched debutante inspired collection featured loud wallpaper prints and a tshirt emblazoned with ‘Riche Bish’. New York may be more about the commercial side of fashion, but London is certainly where the fun happens on the catwalk.
Prints were everywhere again but surprisingly Mary Katrantzou moved away from her favoured digital prints and this time showed a strong collection heavy on embroidery and pleats which was a bold move. Peter Pilotto demonstrated his masterful use of digital prints with a colourful collection of clashing geometric prints in modern silhouettes.
Preen by Thornton Bregazzi
Preen by Thornton Bregazzi also looked to detailed prints in eye-catching shades, although much like Rodarte last week in NY, Star Wars also featured in the collection, with a Darth Vader print making an appearance on tops and dresses. The fashion set were most delighted to be greeted by the unusual sight of stormtroopers at the show, which of course made for some of the week’s most amusing Instagram shots. The force is definitely strong on the Star Wars prints for next season.
Simone Rocha
Young designer Simone Rocha garnered much attention for her beautiful collection of Elizabethan inspired pieces which were utterly gorgeous in silhouettes that were feminine and cleverly proportioned. The sheer fabrics and messy punk hair-dos helped add a modern edge to a carefully considered collection. She received a great deal of adulation backstage after her show from some very well-known names which must have been pretty exciting.
Christopher Kane
As for the trends, well it’s safe to say that things will be quite relaxed for Winter 2014 with many collections taking on a more folky feel and soft earthy shades like those seen at Burberry were a popular choice. There was much less emphasis on clean lines or digital prints than before too, although there was quite a lot of matching going on with separates and accessories, the look was feminine layering but not too uptight or prim. Monochromatic looks were out in favour of geometric prints and textures like those seen at Christopher Kane and Roksanda Ilincic.
It’s been a fascinating week filled with amazing fashion both on and off the runway, of course the street style was pretty impressive too, with the now ubiquitous crowds of photographers outside the shows making sure that every blog-worthy outfit was captured daily. Now that London is over and the fashion crowd have moved on, it will be really interesting to see what comes down the runway in Milan and Paris over the next two weeks.
– Evelyn Ebrey
Images: Style.com