Friday 26th February: LFW AW16 Round-up

My WAH! Nails c/o a pop up bar at Converse gifting suite, hair cut & Olaplex treatment at BlueTit salon, hair colour by Tracy Hayes at Fudge using new PaintBox pastels, Beam shoes streetstyle, Molly Goddard's collection on the NewGen stand, Edeline Lee's presentation at The Vinyl Factory, Fashion East at Tate Britain featuring Richard Malone, AV Robertson and Caitlin Price. 

Friday 26th February: LFW AW16 - Headonism

Within the Designer Showrooms of London Fashion Week is Stephen Jones millinery talent showcase "Headonism".  Each season he selects different contemporary hat designers to exhibit their collections side by side.  Here are examples of Noel Stewart's collaboration with embroiderer Scott Ramsay Kyle, Piers Atkinson and Keely Hunter.  

Friday 26th February: LFW AW16 - Ryan Lo

 

"Travel The Road Less Travelled By............ " Ryan Lo's AW16 collection looks back at his last 10 years in London and growing up in Hong Kong.  This celebration of Chinese civilisation was presented with these Dragon arches down the runway by Gary Card and White Rabbit sweets gifted on the front row with a soundtrack of Amanda Lear's "ChinaTown" and Siouxie Sue's "Hong Kong Garden".  

Wedsnesday 24th February: LFW AW16 - Ashley Williams

Ashley Williams "Extra Terrestrial" show styled by Fran Burns, opened by Adwoa Aboah and Georgia May Jagger, cast by Rosie Vogel - and garment detail from her NewGen stand in the showroom.

Wednesday 24th February: LFW AW16 Julie Verhoeven for Sunglasses Hut

This season, the official sponsor of London Fashion Week was Sunglasses Hut  who offered the chance for visitors to personalise their very own sunglass case, designed by House of Holland, Julie Verhoeven & Kate Moross.  Here is Julie at her customisation session onsite in the designer showrooms yesterday.  I was lucky enough to get a cosmic rainbow and glitter embellished case which is now more a work of art than an accessory.  Incredible!  I love fashion week for the freebies but its usually popcorn = I don't think I've ever had something that I can pop in a frame before!!  Thank you Sunglasses Hut!!!  Cosmic! 

Tuesday 23rd February: LFW AW16 Ashish - Backstage

Ashish's collection came down the catwalk to the soundtrack of The Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds" with models floating along under ginormous cumulus afros.  Each one had been tinted to the exact shade of the block colour look, so that the finale came together as one complete spectrum of girls.  The disco inspired collection had slips of sequin dresses straight out of Studio 54, ready for the accumulating AW16 1970's trend.   

Monday 22nd February: LFW AW16 Mary Benson

Mary Benson's AW16 presentation "Not Sorry" at the legendary music venue "100 Club" on Oxford Street.

Monday 22nd February: LFW AW16 Claire Barrow

I really enjoyed Claire Barrow's take on the Fashion Week formula.   Her presentation was like a satirical pseudo-retrospective exhibition as commentary on the current state of the industry churning over and mis-referencing inspirations.  With a manifesto penned by Reba Maybury outlining this preoccupation it resonated with my recent thoughts that there isn't really any definable style for "our time" because everything is so scattered and washed out. 

Going against the grain of digital technology and technique, Claire got out her brushes and used the giant frames of Elms Elsters Painting rooms to freestyle over 15 foot canvases as her cloth.  Here you can see details of the dresses that she made from this textile named "Dawn Of Man" and "Sphinx".   These fine-art show-pieces were interspersed with a printed and embroidered collaboration with British luxury knitwear brand John Smedley.   Each look had its own label like a museum piece with details of when it was made, materials and title.  So good!

I'm so pleased that LFW still has a nugget of something fun and fresh with this nod to the nostalgia worm-hole that everyone else is getting sucked in to and letting slide.  

Monday 22nd Feb: LFW AW16 Zandra Rhodes

The backing cloth from the screen-printing tables of Zandra Rhodes studio were used as the set design for her presentation at the ICA Gallery.  All the layers of ink and shapes tesselated over time, were a beautiful backdrop to her new AW16 collection of brocade silk fabrics.  Her signature metallic swirls are now across suits using "Songket" to complement her soft sheer silhouettes.  The "Shimmer & Shine" collaboration with Kraftangan uses this Malaysian textile technique to revive the tradition and bring it to a new market.  Songket, also originally worn as head ties and headdresses in Malay ceremonies,  has now been reimagined and reworked into Turbans by Piers Atkinson.  Jewellry came from Lara Bohinc, glasses by Kitty Joseph and shoes from Nicholas Kirkwood to complete the nostalgic "Global Nomad" vibe with models dancing around the museum gallery setting.  Soundtracked by The Broken Hearts, this was the perfect Saturday night 70's style salon soiree for fashion week, thank you Dame Zandra.