EN-ER-GY! After settling back into regular life after a very fabulous stay at The Londoner Hotel for London Fashion Week and combing one by one through all of the runway shows, digital lookbooks and videos that were released over the past few days, I can literally feel the high-octane buzz all over again. London may not have had its gigantic designer blockbuster moments of years gone by, but it’s always been about innovation, burgeoning talent, vibrant street style and pushing the boundaries anyway, and this February’s line-up delivered it by the truckload, old-school style.
Where the past few seasons have almost willed us into a new, post-lockdown era of possibilities, this time, it actually started to seem, well, real. Maybe we could go to those parties after all. Maybe we will have an excuse to get dressed up. Maybe, just maybe, that dust-covered suitcase and holiday capsule will finally catch some vit D. But more than the options ahead of us in terms of the social calendar, London’s designers were thinking of the bigger socio-cultural opportunities too. The LFW circuit was full of gender-fluid collections and pieces (a move that has been helped along by the men’s and women’s schedules merging); agenda-setting new ideas when it comes to sustainable fashion, particularly in the realm of upcycling (longer-standing designers donated pieces to Matty Bovan’s collection to great effect) and greater diversity on the runway allowed many of us to finally see ourselves reflected in high fashion clothes. There’s still a way to go within all of these realms, but it’s a cracking start that other cities should pay attention to.
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