Bora Aksu’s pandemic-inspired collection at London Fashion Week
Parading in London’s autumn sunshine, models, wearing sheer face veils, also showed off tiered dresses in pastel shades of pink and blue, and dark purples, with prints and lace
Turkish designer Bora Aksu said the coronavirus pandemic inspired his latest collection, which looks back over one hundred years to the Spanish flu pandemic and the end of World War One.
COVID-19 meant that Aksu’s fashion show on Friday was one of only four taking place at London Fashion Week, according to the British Fashion Council, compared with the 46 shows that took place at the event last September.
The designer said that ater such an isolating period earlier in the year due to the pandemic, he felt that not having a traditional show would have been “cuting off that human touch, I really couldn’t do it.”
He said of the pandemic: “It has so kind of affected all our lives and the way we operate and work that I could not take myself out of it.”
It made him think of the 1918 flu pandemic and the accompanying time of mourning at the end of the war, and the much more optimistic period that followed.
The floaty white dresses with long socks and white boots reflected the minimal dressing of the nurses who treated the war wounded and those suffering from flu, he said.
Parading in London’s autumn sunshine, models, wearing sheer face veils, also showed off tiered dresses in pastel shades of pink and blue, and dark purples, with prints and lace.
“The collections and the fashion actually should reflect the times that we be going through,” Aksu said.
He said he wanted to send a message of hope by reminding people that ater World War
One and the Spanish flu pandemic, good times followed for many in the early 1920s.
London Fashion Week kicked off on Thursday with a livestreamed show from Burberry but without the hordes of industry insiders, A-listers and journalists who usually flock to it from around the world.
The twice-annual event is “adapting to a new reality” due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers said, with a “digital first” approach complemented by a handful of live events.
Around 80 designers are presenting their latest collections during the six days of showings, some in catwalk presentations but most via videos posted on the Fashion Week’s official website.
“These presentations and shows are at a much smaller scale,” Stephanie Phair, head of the British Fashion Council (BFC), said, noting they would be “limited mostly to editors, buyers and people commenting”.
“It is also an opportunity... for designers to really have a more personal connection with the editors and the buyers and actually talk through their collections,” she added.
Among the designers holding public parades — with specially crated social distancing guidelines in place — were Bora Aksu, luxury knitwear pioneer Mark Fast and the Chinese brand PRONOUNCE.