Homegrown heavyweights shine at London Fashion Week
The dreamlike elegance of Roksanda, earthy
shades of JW Anderson and a rubber-inspired collection from Christopher Kane
were among the highlights of the fourth day of London Fashion Week on Monday.
Serbian designer Roksanda Ilincic, a growing force in the British fashion
world since her 2005 debut, took over a large warehouse-like space in the West
End Selfridges department store, a temple of fashion and luxury consumption
for her much-anticipated show.
Photos: JW Anderson AW19, Catwalkpictures.com
The designer, who regularly dresses A-List stars from the Duchess of
Cambridge to Melania Trump and Emma Stone, dusted the catwalk with a fine coat
of white sand, illuminated by artificial rainbows, to conjure a dreamy
landscape.
Her wardrobe echoed the laid-back, contemplative mood, with long, fluid
dresses nonchalantly tied at the waist or shoulder, in the style of Roman
togas.
Roksanda, who now operates in 40 countries, made sparing use of gabardine,
silk and satin, which she fashioned into geometric compositions inspired by
her architectural background.
Renowned for her ability to create subtle and harmonious colour
combinations, the designer said backstage that her choice of a palette
dominated by brown, gold and fuchsia was guided by “a lot of intuition”.
“Obviously after that I have my very precious box with lots of colour
swatches, everything, some are fabrics, some are little swatches from books or
postcards,” she explained.
Northern Irish designer JW Anderson also presented his fashion house’s
Autumn/Winter 2019 collection, calling it an “exploration of volume and
proportions” and an “aristocratic continuation of the juxtapositions that
imbue” his brand.
Photos: JW Anderson AW19, Catwalkpictures.com
“JW Anderson is about going from one thing to the thing to the next, about
polar opposites,” he said backstage after the show.
“The dresses with the thread going through, they just happened. We were
improvising colours, it’s kind of like we were taking a huge needle through
the fabric. And it just stuck.”
His models strode down the catwalk wearing leather baseball caps high on
their heads, with an earthy palette and a mixture of leathers and studding
defining the collection.
Fashion’s darker underbelly
Christopher Kane, recognised as a driving force behind the “British New
Wave” of designers, injected a more experimental atmosphere into Fashion Week
with his show at a deserted office building in the heart of London, evoking
fashion’s darker underbelly.
Photos: Christopher Kane AW19, Catwalkpictures.com
Small, ultra-short bustier dresses, enhanced with a touch of lace, were
decorated with intriguing transparent pockets containing coloured liquids
while “human obsessions” were explored with fetish-inspired rubber balloons
and latex gloves printed on T-shirts and dresses.
The Scottish designer is also a celebrity favourite, dressing Lady Gaga,
actress Kate Bosworth and singer Dua Lipa.
The increasing importance of Fashion Week reflects Britain’s booming
fashion industry, with revenues for women’s ready-to-wear rising by 5.5
percent to 30.9 billion GBP (39.6 billion USD) in 2018, according to the market
analyst group Mintel.(AFP)
Main photos: Roksanda AW19, Catwalkpictures.com