Latest Archived Fashion Events

Meadham Kirchhoff - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

19 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

Slaves to fashion, two different kinds of servicemen, or servicewomen – sailors and maids - peopled this transporting, neo-Victoriana show, with aprons and vintage sailor top references key leitmotifs. A soaring violin score heightened the romantic mood, as models in reworked ivory sailor skirt suits, black velvet dresses sporting detachable ruffled apron bibs and black chiffon and ivory lace dresses with pointy doily collars glided by like characters from the set of a period movie going off for tea break, with among props pretty diamante hair combs or black veils.


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Roksanda Ilincic - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

19 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

Things were pretty-in-pink to begin with, especially an oversized coat in a delicate shade of the feminine hue, and a fitted dress in a midi length which was color-blocked - via contrast accents at the waist and collar - in a sweet trio of tones including pale pink, candy floss and a neon salmony tint. The designer also worked the same shape on a bustier version, only here blocking with different-sized gray plaid checks. Then things got slightly twisted, as the storyline opened up to include full pink skirts sporting glossy pink PVC aprons, clinical oversized T-shirts in baby-pink silk, and retro silhouettes in curious color combinations and materials, coupling a shaved shearling coat in spearmint with a toffee-brown collar with a mud-brown dress, for instance, or decorating a crackly dark-brown PVC dress with silver embroidery resembling snowflakes. It was a strange universe, one that really came together when the designer stepped out to take her runway bow in one of her full PVC skirts, clutching a huge bunch of branches and flowers which complemented her matte red lipstick. Ilincic is her own muse. And it will take women with her kind of polished, old school glamour to truly pull these pieces off, especially the quirkier styles.

- Katya Foreman


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Anya Hindmarch - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

19 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

Presenting on the final day of London Fashion Week, as the fatigue was setting in, leather goods queen Anya Hindmarch refreshed the senses with another deliciously original presentation, one that - according to her press notes – involved 7,559 man hours, 50,000 dominos, 1,356 cups of tea, 35 mouse traps and 523 gray hairs. The witty designer fulfilled a long held ambition here with a London Fashion Week version of ‘Domino Day,’ staged in a London garage.


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Tom Ford - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

It’s been the talk of the week and the golden ticket - Tom Ford’s first on-schedule show, since bidding adieu to the catwalk in 2004 after leaving the Gucci Group, held in a historic mansion in the Palace complex in the city’s St. James district used for government hospitality, London’s Lancaster House. But for anyone trying to predict what the collection would be like, based on the venue and Ford’s penchant for dark, sexy high glamour, the designer threw an audacious curveball. He kind of spoiled the surprise a bit, printing a clue - Cross Cultural Multi Ethnic – on white cards that were laid out on each chair in the site’s gilded salon.


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Giles - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

It really would take someone like eccentric beauty Kristen McMenamy (the show’s opening and closing model), or maybe a tiara-d Courtney Love, to pull off the ironic ivory and pale pink satin medieval princess frocks, with their mutton sleeves and ballooning volumes, which bordered on fancy dress. Saving graces included the slim floor-length silk gowns and a powdery pink bustier dress with a full skirt and oversized gold feather caressing the bust, its wispy fronds adding decorative relief.


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Burberry Prorsum - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

In terms of its playful materials, this was a mirror reflection of the house's recently presented men's show, with one of the opening looks -a leopard print top and knee-length skirt in translucent rubber which revealed the heart motifs of the model’s panties- encapsulating three of the main ingredients. Titled “Trench Kisses: A Collection of Classics and Christine Keeler,” with its muse the former English model and showgirl infamous for her role in a scandal following her involvement with a minister in the early Sixties, known as the Profumo affair, which almost brought down the British government.


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Louise Gray - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

HEY CRAZY says LOUISE GRAY – all spelled in capitals in the show notes – with as bright, loud and charmingly deranged a collection one could expect from her, if not better. For amid the clashing prints and wacky rainbow patterns, there was a new sharpness of silhouette and form that noticeably raised the bar of Gray’s aesthetic.


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Christopher Kane - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

It seemed poignant that this super-cool broad explosion of ideas by one of London’s most celebrated fashion showmen – as the first collection since the announcement in January that PPR was acquiring a 51-percent stake in his business - was bringing forward ideas from past collections; a kind of overview before embarking on the next installment of his career. As a metaphor for this mental flashback, Kane emblazoned a black T-shirt and dress with a colourful rendering of an MRI scan image of “the brain working healthily” with an electric crackle shooting out of it. Coloured images of brain activity also patterned a black silk dress with rounded shoulders, with a tinselly finale of dresses bristling with metallic wire, baguette beads and springy coil also wittily referencing brainpower.


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Michael Van Der Ham - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

It was a darker season for Michael van der Ham who took vintage couture as a starting point for a collection that felt more high-end and polished than ever before. There was a new confidence, a sleight of hand in his cut-and-paste approach to mixing fabrics and patterns, bringing out maximum drama from his otherwise muted autumnal palette of deep auburn, green and navy. The skin-tight tailored brocade trousers grounded flowy tops while the jacquard pencil skirts worn over longer sheer chiffon layers had the somberly romantic feel of loveworn couture that is yet beautifully preserved.


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Sophia Webster - Ready To Wear - Fall Winter 2013 - London

18 Feb 2013
Ready To Wear Fall Winter 2013 London

Unicorns, bubblegum and My Little Pony – this is what Sophia Webster’s served up on the sunny Monday morning at her accessory presentation “I’m a Rainbow Too.” The Webster girl certainly is, rocking full on pastels, polka dots, leopard and zig zag prints and patterns and multi-coloured plait-horns. It’s not hard to see why after her stellar LFW debut last season, Webster has landed strongly and surely on the fashion radar; winning the coveted Newgen sponsorship and mentored by her former boss Nicholas Kirkwood, she has managed to solidify an identity in a way that is rarely seen by a young designer.


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