LONDON – It’s a new chapter for London Fashion Week. The first to take place under the British Fashion Council’s new CEO Laura Weir, who has made her message clear: “fashion matters.” In her opening speech on Friday, Weir doubled down on her ambition to make London “a sensational showcase of creative fashion design talent” by reducing the barriers to entry and opening the schedule to “new energy, new thinking and new ideas.” That includes participation from new and returning brands, but also a wider breadth of international editors and buyers to platform the UK capital on the global stage. Backstage, designers both new and established were cautiously optimistic at the promises being made. Already, there are signs that the city is being taken more seriously. Earlier in the week, members of Parliament gathered to discuss whether London Fashion Week was in the national interest — marking the first time the event had been debated at government level. “We know as an industry that there is often a lapse of respect for fashion and the contribution it brings to the UK,” Weir said. “The world is watching this week. Let us show them what only London can do.” Indeed, there were blockbuster moments from the likes of Burberry — who closed out the week’s schedule with a star-studded show at Kensington Palace Gardens, attended by Elton John, Olivia Dean and Vanessa Williams — as well as H&M (the latter opened the week with a celebrity-filled catwalk walked by Romeo Beckham and with a performance from “Messy” singer Lola Young). But smaller designers also gave plenty to talk about — from noteworthy milestones, including the various anniversaries of Roksanda, Harris Reed, Ashish and Fashion East (the incubator that launched Jonathan Anderson’s career), to the innovation from newcomers including Oscar Ouyang, Maximilian Raynor and Johanna Parv. “It really feels like there’s a renewed sense of energy in London right now,” said Daniel Fletcher, who designs for his namesake label as well as the Chinese brand Mithridate. While members of the UK government were considering the country’s relationship to fashion, a handful of designers were distilling their own experience of British life onto the runway. Patrick McDowell, a Liverpudlian designer based in London, staged his first catwalk since winning the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Award for Design in May.
Dedicated to his home county, the collection was titled “Lancashire Rose,” and featured cinched blazers in jacquard fabric and sandy colored trench coats reimagined into strapless tops and full skirts. Fletcher, who presented his second collection for Mithridate, said he was inspired by two British archetypes: the country folk and the town dwellers. His fusion of these two “very different worlds” manifested in pink sequined party dresses layered over Oxford shirts and tall riding boots paired with sparkly underwear. “It’s a clash that shouldn’t really work, but somehow does,” he told CNN backstage. But a few renegades creatively defected across the pond, looking instead at America for inspiration. The eponymous designer Yuhan Wang was inspired by David Lynch’s “Mullholland Drive” (2001), while the cult British-Bulgarian brand Chopova Lowena created an entire cheer squad with tinsel hair extensions and rhinestone eyeliner. Inspired by the community and culture that comes with cheerleading, there were letterman jackets, T-shirts that read “Popular” in varsity typeface, and knitted hoodies emblazoned with pom-pom yielding models, who walked to the tune of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” which has become synonymous with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders following their hit Netflix show. “It was a lot of healing high school trauma in a way,” co-founder Emma Chopova said after the show. “It reframed things that happened to us, who were, and who we wanted to be.”