Somerset House hosted another extremely successful week for British Fashion last week, where the Spring/Summer 2012 Collections, were shown over six days, and included 68 catwalk shows, and 37 presentations. An estimated 5,000 visitors attended, and 33 catwalk shows were streamed live to over 200 publisher sites, reaching viewers across 172 Countries.
Key trends emerging from the superb collections themselves were florals, as seen at Erdem, Ashish, and Mary Katrantzou, yellows in differing shades from a light citron to a deeper yellow (as seen at Holly Fulton and many other shows). Metallic looking fabrics were prominent at Giles and Richard Nicoll, and also more subtly at Paul Costelloe, and ethnic inspired prints were seen at Burberry and Topshop Unique. Sporty references were also prominent as they had been during the menswear shows at Milan and Paris, with drawstrings on the waists of jackets, and toggles on hooded jumpers.
Mesh made a comeback in a big way at Jaeger, with sheer blouses, and Marios Schwab, with his caged mesh dresses.
The blazer is back for Spring/Summer 2012, and beautiful sheath dresses were seen on many catwalks, including Matthew Williamson and also within Jasper Conran’s exquisite collection.
Holly Fulton’s collection was superb, as usual, with her signature art deco prints on most of her garments – rendering them now instantly recognisable, and Danielle Scutt showed an androgynous collection of well-cut minimalism – but with a twist. Sleek pieces (including suits), were adorned with coats, skirts, jackets and parkas made from golden lame, and her opener of a well-cut masculine suit, was layered with a rope-dress rendering it instantly feminine, (and wearable). Genius!
With London Fashion Week now being supported by Politicians, (Boris Johnson opened the event again), Politicians wives, (Samantha Cameron does her utmost to promote British Designer Talent – even hosting cocktail parties at Downing Street), International Fashion Royalty (Anna Wintour stayed all week), and Tom Ford chose to launch his collection here, plus new “Ambassadettes” for emerging talent Poppy Delevigne, and Laura Bailey, (as well as many others including Olympic Sports Stars), we certainly seem to have a powerful team to promote the future of British Fashion – and what’s more it’s working!
GO GREAT BRITAIN!!
Words by Amanda Waters