The international fashion jamboree rolls into
Britain on Friday for London Fashion Week, where iconic label Alexander
McQueen will return to the catwalk for the first time in over a decade.
Among the 83 designers showcasing their Autumn/Winter 2016-2017
collections
to media, buyers and front-row A-listers will be Burberry, Christopher Kane,
Gareth Pugh, JW Anderson, Paul Smith, Topshop Unique and Vivienne Westwood.
British fashion and leather goods brand Mulberry, under the direction of
new creative director Johnny Coca, will also make a return to the London
catwalk for the first time since 2013.
Shows will be streamed live across Britain on 60 outdoor screens,
including
a giant one in London’s Piccadilly Circus, reaching a potential audience of
35
million, according to organisers.
Once the poor relation on the international fashion circuit, London has
recently built a reputation for invention and creativity, buoyed by
Britain’s
growing fashion industry.
That rebellious spirit is set to be unleashed as designers mark the
40th
anniversary of punk, which grew out of the London clothes shop run by
Vivienne
Westwood and her then boyfriend, Sex Pistols mastermind Malcolm McLaren.
Punk’s grand dame is set to present her label’s latest collection on Sunday.
Designers were invited to reveal teasers of their collection on
photo-sharing website Pinterest.
Westwood posted pictures of religious figures, knights and
aristocratic
paintings while others promised collections inspired by the British
countryside, cubist paintings and birds in flight.
Israeli shoe brand Lux said it would pay tribute to late singer David
Bowie, naming their collection after Bowie’s song “Moonage Daydream”.
Major British label Burberry already honoured the rock icon at last
month’s
men’s fashion week.
In a coup for the event, Alexander McQueen announced last year that
it was
relocating from Paris to London for its autumn/winter collection, and the
show
will take place on Sunday.
“We wanted to look at doing something different for the season,” said a
spokesperson for the label.
Alexander McQueen himself, who committed suicide in 2010, was
honoured last
year with a retrospective at London’s V&A which went on to become the London
design museum’s most visited exhibition of all time.
London Fashion Week’s seemingly unglamorous headquarters is a car park in
the central Soho neighbourhood.
With the cars gone, the unusual venue will house hundreds of shoe,
accessory and ready-to-wear designers displaying their new collections and a
huge catwalk.
Other designers hire private spaces to put on their shows, with
Burberry
traditionally erecting a large tent within the grounds of Kensington
Gardens.
The first London Fashion Week, held in 1971, was the brainchild of
fashion
PR guru Tony Porter, who thought it “ridiculous” that Paris and Milan hosted
journalists and buyers twice a year, but that London didn’t.
The event’s rise has tracked Britain’s growing fashion industry,
which now
supports almost 800,000 jobs. Sales of womenswear in Britain hit 27 billion
pounds (38.5 billion dollars, 34.5 billion euros) in 2015, a figure
predicted to grow 23 percent by 2020.
The event follows on the heels of the New York version, with the fashion
world shifting to Milan and then Paris next month. (AFP)