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I don’t have the time nor energy to write an individual review for every show, so I’ll just try to round up every day in a single post every night unless there’s one thing that deserves special attention, of course. Aplogies in advance for the rambling – very little time, too much to say.
First of all I’d like to give a little shout out to my companions for the day, the lovely Kate of Fabric of My Life, Siska of Style for Style’s Sake and Issie, stylist extraordinaire of Shoot Uk, who really made my day so much more enjoyable.
Paul Costelloe opened LFW for the 5th consecutive season. Am not a fan particularly, but always go to the show, because at 9.30am on the first day, I am full of good intentions to go to all the shows I get tickets to. Anyway, pleasantly surprised by this 21st Century Marie Antoinette silhouette, with crazy pouffy skirts and hair and leather legwarmers (for lack of better word) we also saw at Alexander Wang. For a guy his age, Paul Costelloe can still hang with ‘the kids’. A nice little starter to begin the week with. Full collection here.
After this, the official opening to LFW, by Harold Tillman and Sarah Brown (as always in Erdem – so jealous!), followed by the Caroline Charles show. I’ll keep my comments on this one pretty short, as I’ve got nothing nice to say, not one thing. During this show I tweeted: “At Caroline Charles, my Grandmother would love this show” – well I take it back. My grandmother has way better style than that. I don’t like to really slam people, but I really do fail to understand why designers like that are still allowed to show on the main schedule, when young talents would just die to take that slot.
Then off across the street to The Waldorf for Maria Grachvogel‘s first on-schedule show in the Palm Court, which was such a perfect venue for her target audience. Erin O’Connor, Yasmin LeBon and the recently outed LibertyLondonGirl (aka Sasha Wilkins) all sat front row. Maria brought a sophisticated collection of eveningwear in mostly black, but then spiced it up with bright yellows and greens. A nice little addition to the schedule, as Maria Grachvogel only did salon presentations until now. (Well, as long as I’ve been around)
Next stop, the Orla Kiely presentation, which you can read about below. Presentations are a nice little break from the shows and really worth doing if you can fit them in your schedule, because you often get to meet the designers, get to inspect the clothes from up close and in a fun, different environment.
I stopped by the Orla Kiely presentation today to check out the AW10 collection and was really pleasantly surprised. For me, Orla Kiely always walked a very thin line between retro and tacky, with the toiletry bags and the wallpaper and the coffee mugs in matching prints. But the clothing line was actually a real revelation; the Sixties inspired collection came out beautifully in the Somerset House’s Portico Rooms, which they’d completely decked out in full Orla Kiely furniture and wallpaper for the occasion.
There were lots of pretty little A-line coats with big buttons and little round collars, the cutest little twinsets and the heels-with-sock-combo which seems to be a staple of so many collections this season. The big leather weekend bag caused me to have a massive case of bag-envy.
Is it high fashion? Not really, but it’s cute and wearable as hell and these are the clothes you actually end up buying.
I write this as I sit in the tent waiting for the next show to begin, this is the first post I write using the WordPress app for iPhone, so forgive me if it looks a little funny – but this is my first attempt at live blogging!
This morning, London Fashion Week officially started, and as this is the spiritual home of Lee McQueen, his sad passing did not go unnoticed. A minute of silence was held before Sarah Brown’s opening speech.
This beautiful tribute wall has been set up so everyone can leave their thoughts and memories alongside images of some of his most iconic moments.
The McQueen scarf is literally everywhere, but they’re a beautiful tribute.
Although he hasn’t shown here for many years, the many messages prove that London is paying its respects to a man who will very much be missed.
