The men’s Fall/Winter 2018-19 edition of London Fashion Week was held over just a period of three days this time. Big names like Burberry and J.W.Anderson gave the schedule a miss in favour of staging their collection as a co-ed showcase at the forthcoming and more widely attended women’s fashion week, to be held in March 2018.
Even Britain’s punk queen Vivienne Westwood cancelled the runway show to release her collection digitally through a fashion film during the week.
However, London is famed for its breadth of young emerging talent and even though the list of designers presenting was sparse, the shows were still attended by all major buyers and covered by the press alike.
Thanks to a freer schedule, creatives who did showcase in the city went wild with their presentation format and avant-garde costumes. The newcomers received ample attention for their relentless focus on breaking the traditional fashion system, and the more well-known names experimented with the way they communicate inspirations to an extremely attentive audience this week.
From cardboard cut-outs of Naomi Campbell at Rottingdean Bazaar, colourfully painted faces walking for Loverboy, Band of Outsiders’ ice skaters filled show to Craig Green’s extreme game of shapes, the week was immersed in experiencing the idea behind fashion shows in an elevated way.
The British capital delivered a fantastic roster of menswear flair and designers like Wales Bonner, Lou Dalton and new insert, Zander Zhou presented a promising line-up for the season.
The week’s buzziest show was perhaps the presentation of Charles Jeffery’s two-year-old label ‘Loverboy’. Last season, Jeffrey won the emerging talent prize at the British Fashion Awards and his latest spectacle was again a class in catwalk theatre. The show began with a performance that was a mix of dancing, screaming fits and tears to explain the collection’s concept which was inspired by his experience of growing up as a queer teen in Scotland.
A similar youthful angst was a major theme in London where impractical statement-making costumes were used to pedal the functional stock. This was most evident at the Craig Green show, where models walked around with wooden tents on their shoulders, strongly reminiscent of jet skis while the rest of the collection was filled with corded parkas and military uniforms.
Famous Brit silhouettes like army coats were paired with hoodies for a streetwear-friendly upgrade. Astrid Anderson presented sportswear pieces styled with Stetson hats and bulky English tartans. The Rottingdean Bazaar display was jam-packed with hysterics – a dartboard dress and almost nothing that could actually be worn in the real world completed the entire act.
Fabric treatments and heavy-duty outerwear with intense pocket detailing as well as creative fitting were some of the details that stood sharply in most collections. Service jackets inspired by construction uniforms and an ironic take on the ‘ugly fashion meets dad-core’ movement were also common visions shared everywhere.
While London is not particularly the place to find trends, the city always introduces rather interesting ideas that form the season’s bedrock. Nevertheless, even in disruptive London, it was obvious that some themes like athletic functionality and a return to more body-conscious tailoring are becoming the new standard.
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