SEVEN MONTHS AGO
where designers out-do each other in choosing extraordinary venues, from car parks to gin palaces, and hundreds of bodies cram into a tight space.
‘Extravagant fashion shows must be produced on a modest scale,’ says Dylan. ‘This is not the time to go guerrilla and try to do crazy things.’
LFW receives government funding and its parent, the BFC, has been ensuring safety measures are intact.
Halted supply chains and factory closures have meant many Autumn/Winter 2020 styles have yet to be put into production, let alone arrive in stores. Meanwhile, without international Press in town to witness them, justifying the expense of traditional shows is harder.
Yet even if London could have gone ahead with its schmoozing events, already change was in the air. B EFORE the pandemic, the rigid six-month catwalk-to-shop lead time (the time it takes ready-to-wear catwalk collections to be ordered, made and delivered to shops) of Paris, Milan, New York and London had begun to break down. Shoppers wanted to wear what they saw on models now.
Menswear and womenswear, once segregated, had begun to morph into one, with designers including Gucci, Saint Laurent and Burberry parading men’s and women’s in the same show.
As for focusing collections on the traditional fashion seasons — Spring/Summer and Autumn/
Winter, each shown six months ahead of time — LFW September 2020 will not even specify the clothes being displayed are Spring/Summer 2021, as they normally would. The way we dress now rarely involves packing away wardrobes every six months.
This accent on low-cost, tradition-busting, digital shows may well be to London’s advantage. ‘Young designers prefer to use LFW than fashion weeks in their own country,’ says Martyn Roberts, who runs Fashion Scout, an independent, avant-garde platform that offers an alternative to the BFC schedule and hosts international designers.
This year Fashion Scout is digital-only, with no physical shows at all. Making her debut that way is Didi Akinyelure, a Nigerian/British designer whose brand is called April & Alex.
‘Our big plan for 2020 was to launch a pop-up store in [London shopping mall] Brent Cross in April and we were ready to go,’ she says — before lockdown ended that dream. However, her digital presentation (documenting the fashion shoot for her ‘look book’, photos taken to showcase a designer’s outfits), she says, ‘will reach a wider range of people who traditionally may not have been able to attend; so that in itself is exciting’.
Amanda Wakeley, an established fixture of LFW, has also been heavily impacted. ‘In lockdown I had to give 80 per cent of my time to my online business rather than my five retail stores,’ she says.
She began writing blogs for her website, telling the story of each piece of clothing to entice customers. Happily, it increased sales. ‘I wanted to make every piece celebrated,’ she says. ‘The old wholesale way of selling clothes six months ahead is broken. It’s not how my customer wants to shop.
‘She is not interested in buying a winter coat in May when she is thinking about Ascot.’
Caroline Rush, chief executive of the BFC, says: ‘It is essential to look at the future and the opportunity to change, collaborate and innovate. The past few months have proved the importance of resetting.’
With no fashion circus in town, does that mean the days of American Vogue’s Anna Wintour sweeping into The Ritz trailing six Louis Vuitton trunks is over?
Show producer John Walford, who worked with Vivienne Westwood in her heyday at LFW, is reluctant to accept the traditional fashion show is dead. ‘When I started doing catwalks in 1985 I was told this. It never happened.’
Martyn Roberts adds: ‘Fashion films can’t replace physical events. But to the 99.9 per cent who never got a front-row seat for a show, to watch on a laptop is intriguing.’ A S FOR those LFW shows which do take place in more traditional form, fashion author Gill Stark expects the smaller ‘salon’ shows, such as Victoria Beckham’s, will resemble those of the 1800s, where superwealthy clients would have watched local models.
‘I always preferred intimate salon-type shows where the audience could get up close to the models,’ says couture designer Bruce Oldfield, part of the original line-up in the 1980s.
This season may yet herald a renaissance, with a swing away from excess to sustainability. In the meantime, the message is that the show will go on.
As Dylan Jones says: ‘London is not just about fashion shows, it’s about parties, dinners, social interaction and it holds up an example of genuine diversity. London has a much bigger flag to wave than anyone else.’