Five key themes from London Fashion Week SS17

London – Ruffles can be romantic and feminine, or over-the-top and girly, but there
was no avoiding them at the London catwalk shows this week, from new labels
to established big brands. There were centuries-old shapes as designers
drew inspiration from history, stripes were big — and of course, the talk
was all about selling straight off the catwalk. Here are five key trends
from London Fashion Week:

Ruffles

Cascading down a voluminous blue lace gown or lining a jacket over a
tiered skirt,
ruffles were everywhere in Turkish designer Bora Aksu’s romantic, demi-couture
clothes. Hong Kong-born designer Ryan Lo served his up in a joyous
collection of shimmering, candy-coloured dresses, while Ireland’s Paul
Costelloe deployed frilly sleeves.

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Tailoring specialists DAKS had elegant tiered dresses in white and house
check print, while artisanal label Temperley London had an off-the-shoulder
dress with a ruffled top.

Stripes

British designer Gareth Pugh’s collection was inspired by the power of the sun,
with stripes of shimmering solar rays — first silver and white, then black
and white — adorning tunics, trousers and coats. Italian fashion house
Versace developed a new vertical stripe print for its
Versus label, while British luxury brand Mulberry drew on school uniform
stripes in burgundy, mustard and olive green.

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British designer Jasper Conran also went vertical in green, gold, brown,blue
and red, while knitwear label Pringle of Scotland added yellow and red
stripes to the hems of blue tunics and trousers.

Historical references

British luxury brand Burberry took its inspiration from “Orlando”,
Virginia Woolf’s
novel about a man who turns into a woman and lives for centuries, with
heavily patterned coats and collar ruffs.

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Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson looked back to the Tudors for his
own J.W. Anderson collection, with oversized sleeves and quilting
reminiscent
of doublets. Meanwhile Mulberry creative director Johnny Coca took
inspiration from the
18th century for his shoes, which had exaggerated square toes, a chunky heel
and bow ties.

His and hers

London label Teatum Jones kicked off fashion week with a mix of men’s and
women’s clothes, a trend followed by DAKS, Burberry, Julien Macdonald,
Joseph
and Versace’s VERSUS. Macdonald is known for his red carpet dresses and
presented a sexy
collection in which the men sparkled almost as much as the women in
shimmering
animal prints and studded tops.

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Many of Burberry’s clothes could be worn by men or women. “I always say the
trenchcoat is completely genderless, and we tried to look at that, how
things
could be interchangeable,” creative director Christopher Bailey said.

See now buy now

As in New York, the buzz in London was all about designers selling their
wares straight off the catwalk. Burberry put all 83 looks from its
September collection, comprising over 250 pieces, up for sale in store and
online as soon as the show was over.he move was followed by high street
giant Topshop, which offered 60 percent of its UNIQUE collection to buy
immediately. (AFP)

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