With us being mid-way into February, the Fashion Week madness is truly underway. New York Fashion Week has drawn its curtains to a close and now is the time for London, our amazing capital, to shine with the best collections from long-standing and young designers from Central Saint Martins, the top design school in the world.
Fashion Week is always an interesting event, as it is the place to showcase your collections, although there are many designers and brands nowadays who see the scheduling and expense of fashion week as a ridiculous frivolity that isn’t affordable. Many brands are now using Instagram as their main advertising space, preferring to showcase their collection to their niche collection of followers rather than taking part in the arduous process of fashion week, which requires a catwalk, scheduling options, models and a necessary invite list of all the biggest names who will then be able to write/tweet/opinionate themselves about your collection, furthering interest in it. Fashion week remains a necessary component for many of the older brands across more traditional capitals of fashion like Paris and Milan, but London has always retained a cool nonchalance that is also exhibited in the Fashion Show lineup. The main brands that have shown their collections so far are Mulberry, Richard Malone, Amanda Wakely, Bora Aksu, Delpozo and Burberry. Younger showings come from Marta Jakubowski, Mark Fast and Edeline Lee, with collections for A/W 2018 coming thick and fast. The trends so far seem to lean more towards transitionality and in some cases, humour, as fashion continues to unfurl out of the economic slump.
The main news so far has come from Burberry, as Creative Director Christopher Bailey has said that he is leaving the company, ushering in a new creative lead across the collections. His past collections have really brought something new to the eponymous brand and as students, the classic Burberry trench must be on a number of wishlists! They have also announced their support and partnership for the LGBTQ+ community, which is a huge step forward towards high fashion inclusivity and diversity. London Fashion Week is becoming not only more diverse, but also more constant with its support of valuable causes, putting it at the forefront when it comes to ethical fashion and the fashion community.