London Fashion Week begun with rain.
London Fashion Week begun with rain. In typical British fashion those treating Somerset House as their personal runway had to huddle beneath the entrance and pray a stray blogger would notice their now somewhat hidden outfit. Bright pink ‘emergency ponchos’ were handed out in free goody bags but no self-respecting man, woman or child would touch such a thing during the most important five days on the fashion calendar.
Fashmas: Chaotic, inspiring and a little terrifying
That’s exactly what London Fashion Week is. ‘Fashmas’ (fashion Christmas) as it is dubbed on twitter, is a chaotic, inspiring and a little terrifying for the Fashion Week virgins among us. From the moment one steps on the tube heading to Covent Garden, it’s not exactly difficult to tell who’s on their way to (for five days, anyway) the fashion capital of the world.
From fabulous hats to this season’s must have: multi-coloured tartan, sharing a tube carriage is like falling head first into a magazine.
Situated outside Somerset House are multitudes of stalls and crowds of people handing out goody bags, flyers and free magazines. Grab as much stuff as possible is my advice – you never know what free crap you might just find. Keep your beady eyes out for models and celebs too. Tinted Mercedes Benz roll into Somerset House every five minutes, and if you’re lucky you might just spy Anna Wintour’s icy glare peeping out at you.
Tickets are notoriously difficult
Tickets are notoriously difficult to come by. Unless you’re press, for a tiny university paper, then they are almost impossible. Luckily, with a few blags, a rather exaggerated description of readers and a fairly unknown designer, I found myself face to face with some of the most beautiful, and expensive, dresses I’d ever seen.
The Kilian Kerner show was housed in the Waldorf Hilton hotel, a stone’s throw from Somerset House. The collection was presented as more of a showcase than a runway, which was a little disappointing as there were no celebs to be seen. However, a girl sporting the most incredible bright pink tartan skirt suit, something straight from Clueless, was certainly eye-catching. Apart from the most fabulous of distractions, the pieces Kerner showed were breath taking. All his pieces were red carpet, Oscar worthy ball gowns.
Kerner and the throwback designs
A fan of the throwback, Kerner drew inspiration from the 60’s with an almost solid-gold looking shift dress, from the 80’s with structured shoulders and from the 90’s with (another) gold crop-top. Yet it was clear his vision was to modernise these dated trends. The gold fabric was used a multitude of times throughout the collection, it look almost stiff and gave a severe-ness to otherwise ballerina-esque gowns. The structured shoulder were matched with peplums and fishtail skirts, occasionally it was over-kill with this structure details, but the gold, black and white simple colours kept the pieces tones down.
The overall collection was pretty awe-inspiring, but it was the way Kerner chose to display his pieces that was the most interesting. The collection was broken into seven separate mini collections of about five dresses. For each section was a model wearing the most eye-catching of the designs, yet they were modelling alongside mannequins.
Taking a brave risks
The audience walked among the models, able to get within millimetres of the clothes and the models themselves. The affect was almost voyeuristic at times as we took photos and watched the models posed.
For a London Fashion Week debut, Kerner took brave risks with his choice of presentation, and his incredible designs. The only way is up for this designer.
What was your highlight from London Fashion Week? Have your say in the comments section below, on Facebook or on Twitter.
