Report by Rebecca Lowthorpe

If there’s one great positive to come out of day four at the London shows, it’s the look of polish: slickly produced, well-lit, beautifully cast shows – and, for the most part, clothes of a standard you could see in Paris and Milan.
Of course, it helps that the front row now has an international flavour, boasting the likes of Anna, Tonne, Glenda, Michael et al.
But it’s not just them. Time was when there were only two choices of venue for a London runway presentation: the tents (not like now, they were badly lit dungeons of death in terms of generating any kind of atmosphere) or the begged, borrowed and, yes, even stolen venue: a freezing car park/gallery space/warehouse or whatever. The amazing Somerset House and Topshop venues prove that an edgy location is no longer necessary
to impress.
Until recently, there were only a few international catwalk girls whose agents would deign to allow them to stalk the London runways. And, I’m afraid, size 6 or 12, it doesn’t matter, the top-gear models can lift a collection from mediocre to magnifique like a super-fast 0 to 60 seconds. They are the Ferraris of the collections, and they make a difference.
And then comes the most vital ingredient: the clothes. Where once the London collections assumed a kind of studenty, stitched-together-at-the-last-minute mentality, the look today could not feel more elegant, grown-up or business-minded. Back in the day, ‘commercial’ was a dirty word. The ‘concept’ was the thing, and it might have led to some brilliant showmanship, but very little in the way of a business bottom line. Hence our long history of crash-and-burn victims; London’s designer bankrupts are legend. Today’s big London names, however – the Chris Kanes and Marios Schwabs of this world – want to sell their creations. The romantic notion of a Galliano in his bedsit cooking baked beans on a camping stove is long gone.

Tweet This Post