I am beginning to understand girls who make their own schedule of shows a month before fashion week, and a week before they lay out clothes in sets, and know exactly when and where to wear what. My once tidy room is unrecognizable: dresses, bags, shoes and sweaters lie on the floor in an even layer.
Street fashion photographers before Mulberry presentation at Claridge's
Thinking about what to wear is not as stupid as I thought. With a piercing wind blowing in London, I can't part with the Forget Me Not sweater. And he is popular among street fashion photographers. The best - and yet very accurate - compliment I actually heard when one of the photographers said: "Oh you look so ugly!" (In fact, it was “lovely”.) They ask very touchingly: well, well, that is, you work for the Forget Me Not website, and do you have a Look At Me sweater? That's it, not a word more about the sweater.
It is very interesting to see who is shooting whom: this is such an established pattern of national ideas about beauty and fashion. Asian and Japanese photographers catch long-legged girls of model appearance in very correct, well-adjusted clothes, Europeans - mostly very, very brightly dressed people, and the British - a fun mishmash: the eclectic style of Asians, flowery clothes and cheeky boldness of dark-skinned Americans, neat quirkiness of the Japanese.
1. Model from the Mulberry show 2. Entrance to the Claridge's hotel 3. All models in the show wore the same hairstyles and red hair 4. Traditional British Victoria Sponge cakes, which were treated before the presentation, were packed in boxes
Mulberry held a show today at Claridge's Hotel. Huge bright pink flowers, pink lemonade, mini Victoria Sponge cakes, Suzy Menkes from the Herald Tribune and Hamish Bowles from American Voque are talking quietly in the front row. But the most important thing is the pugs who participated in the presentation and the show itself. The owners - all those fashionable editors - very nicely persuaded the pugs to look at the camera: one of the hostesses said to her couple: "Cheese toast, cheese toast!" - and the pugs immediately interestedly turned their heads in my direction. If mini-dogs are the lot of pop culture and girls with rhinestones, then the pug, of course, is the main fashion dog. No wonder Valentino has three of them.
1-2. Pugs and their owner, assistant Katie Grand 3. Hamish Bowles (Vogue)
Today's show Acne can hardly be called a show: it was very intimate and took place in Kensington Palace, in the so-called apartments of Lord Snowdon. Wrought iron gates with golden lilies, warning guards with umbrellas along the entire driveway, green lawns all around, swans, children on bicycles. If the street fashion photographers on duty near the gates were most excited by the appearance of Anna Dello Russo, then, of course, tourists who photographed the gate and the palace were most impressed by Pandemonia … This is a girl who hides her name and face, dressed from head to toe in a latex suit (even her hair is inflatable). She would have passed for the local counterpart to the crazy performance of artist Sasha Frolova, but last winter she was interviewed by i-D magazine, and now she is also part of the fashion world. And to be honest, I was much more delighted to meet Katie Shillingford, fashion editor from Dazed & Confused, with whom we recently shot, and buyer of UK Style Andrey Kovalev.
1. Anna Dello Russo (Vogue Nippon) 2. Street fashion photographers 3. Pandemonia 4. Kensington Palace fence, where Acne was presented 5. Katie Shillingford (Dazed & Confused) 6. Andrey Kovalev (UK Style)
The most distant and most unusual site on the LFW is an abandoned power plant. Battersea … There have been disputes about it for many years - once it was here that they planned to open Tate Modern, and now they are trying to make an art center out of a huge building. The image of Battersea, which, according to the exact words of my friend, resembles an inverted cow, is actually familiar to almost everyone - in 1977 a photo of the station with a tiny inflatable pig was put on the cover of the Animals album by Pink Floyd. Now the building looks very apocalyptic: abandoned rusty excavators, collapsed brick walls, broken windows - and clouds of dust raised by a long line of taxi drivers.
1-2. Battersea Power Station 3. Matthew Williamson's show: front row right - Suzy Menkes (International Herald Tribune) and Hillary Alexander (The Daily Telegraph)
Show Matthew williamson, in itself not particularly exciting, looked very impressive against this background: at first we watched fashionistas flock to the deserted industrial area one by one, and then watched as the models walked in front of a transparent wall, behind which we could see the grassy interior of the station.
LFW buses run from site to site - otherwise you won't be able to catch the next show. Buses, internet, laptops, clarity - it's so nice when the organizers know what they are doing. And in London, in addition to the usual morning and evening free newspapers, The Daily, a small daily newspaper devoted entirely to LFW, began to be handed out on the streets.
Impressions
As usual, at the end we will tell you a little about the most interesting shows. At your chamber show Acne unveiled a very Scandinavian collection: monochrome, discreet and comfortable. Creative director Johnny Johansson stated that he was trying to make a collection without any references to the past (which is hardly possible these days). Major hits, like the sheepskin coat of this season, in which several guests appeared on the show, were not noticed.
View the full show.
Evening show Richard Nicoll began with the fact that after his presentation Johnny Johansson from Acne, who sat down in the second row next to Andrei Kovalev, was politely herded into the first row. A stern man came to the podium and sprayed perfume in the air. However, even without them, the former Eurostar terminal at Waterloo station, where the show was held, looked incredibly romantic, with its frozen escalators and extinguished scoreboards. Under David Bowie, Nicholl showed flying pleated skirts and sheer tops, black and white or dusty pink. And even splashes of patent leather and rhinestones did not deprive the collection of its inner nobility.
View the full show.
All London Fashion Week shows.
To be continued.
Look At Me would like to thank the UK Style store for their help in preparing the material.