The rain and gales of storms Eunice and Franklin were not enough to deter the style set this weekend, as a post-pandemic London Fashion Week only seemed to have wind in its sails.
Despite the absence of a few big names — Burberry will once again show off-schedule and Christopher Kane released his AW22 collection digitally — the LFW timetable was almost back to full health, and several exciting new names like Conner Ives and Poster Girl made dazzling debuts.
Overall the mood was one of cautious post-Covid optimism, with an abundance of sexy, form-fitting silhouettes, feathers and bold colour on the runways and a largely maskless audience on the front row. From excellent coats to perfectly pitched partywear, London’s leading lights were very much designing with an out-out autumn/winter 2022 in mind. And mercifully, there wasn’t a tracksuit in sight. Read on for the weekend’s highlights.
Euphoria dressing
Smash-hit series Euphoria has captivated us with its racy plotlines and even racier fashion and this weekend in London its mix-and-match, flesh-flashing Y2K aesthetic was clearly visible on the runways too. Brit label Poster Girl offered an unabashedly bold collection of cut-out shapewear and diamante-embellished tights worn with furry snow boots and ski jackets, and Conner Ives served up a debut runway show majoring in butterfly clips, silk scarf tops and beaded minis. Nensi Dojaka and Supriya Lele meanwhile delivered extremely exposing minis and pant-flashingly low-slung jeans.
Models of the moment
Jourdan Dunn, Victoria Beckham and Mia Regan graced front rows, but the catwalk has not been without a celebrity moment. Irina Shayk, who co-hosted the London Fashion Week opening party at Bistrotheque, walked for Matty Bovan and Richard Quinn — both of whom dressed her in giant figure-obscuring designs. “Irina is such a beautiful person inside and out,” said Quinn, who worked with Katie Grand to style Shayk in a vast billowing fuchsia silk hooded gown. “We wanted to give her the high fashion moment we knew she would deliver.”
Elsewhere, plus-size pioneer Paloma Elsesser firmly established herself as the name to know as she walked in five shows. She was as effortless in a white leather micro mini at 16Arlington as in a pearl-encrusted ballgown at Simone Rocha.
Jazzy jeans
Among London’s coolest young menswear labels there was a strong message: ditch the tired Levi’s and get experimental with your denim. Fashion editor favourite Priya Ahluwalia’s Bollywood-meets-Nollywood collection featured three Y2K-inflected denim co-ords, printed with everything from diamond patterns to movie characters.
Labrum London’s creative director Foday Dumbuya did dark indigo denim screen printed with artwork from hand-drawn Nomoli figures from the tribes of Sierra Leone, with whom he worked to create the collection.
Daniel W Fletcher paired straight-leg patchwork jeans with stripped cotton halterneck tops. “As part of an ongoing effort to reduce my waste and environmental impact I used scraps, off-cuts, and old pairs of jeans and patchworked them together to create Seventies-inspired checkerboard flares and a denim jacket,” he explained.
Bridal fever
After two years of cancellations and postponements, 2022 is set to be the year of the wedding. And while bridal looks have traditionally been the preserve of couture shows, this week, designers gave brides-to-be plenty to add to their wishlist. Richard Quinn’s bridal look, modelled by Lila Moss, was a satin mini dress bedecked with crystal flowers exploding with ostrich feathers, while Halpern’s bride wore a billowing one-shouldered silk dress with crystal headdress and choker.
Huishan Zhang, whose bride wore a strapless frill-hemmed satin midi with pearl-encrusted mesh gloves, noted it was the first season he’d had a bridal look in a show.
Skull cover
David Koma’s football-inspired diamante-heavy collection featured a black crystal-embellished skull cap, while Erdem’s serene Thirties eveningwear came accessorised with sequinned bonnets with flowing straps. Elsewhere hoods and balaclavas abounded, most beautifully on a standout lime green hooded silk gown at Halpern.
Fuchsia feels
As we emerge from the Covid cocoon we are all craving a little levity from our wardrobes, and several designers delivered with retina-searing brights. “With this season being our first show in two years we wanted to bring some bright, bold and playful colours to the collection,” said Eudon Choi, whose AW22 vision was heavy on scarlet red, burnt orange and bold pink. Also embracing fuchsia’s feel-good powers were Huishan Zhang and Richard Quinn.
A legacy lives on
Perhaps the most remarkable show of the weekend came from 16Arlington and was dedicated to the brand’s co-founder Federica “Kikka” Cavenati, who died aged 28 last November. Her co-founder and partner Marco Capaldo made the decision to create a collection in her memory entitled Tears, which fizzed with Kikka’s playful wit and was traced with an inevitable seriousness.
From marabou coats, giant diamante belts and topaz sequin minis to grey wool tailoring with “tears” falling in fluid crystal detailing, it was a confident and considered collection that spoke of a new direction for the brand. “Marco loved and appreciated every fibre of Kikka as an artist and a woman, and that is one of the central ways she lives on,” said Lena Dunham in the show notes which simply read: “This one’s for Kikka” on the front. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
