This week, London, snatching the torch from New York in the marathon that is Fashion Month, opened its doors to Fashion Week and welcomed into its warm faux-fur embrace over 250 designers and countless fashion insiders, including a number of Oxford students. Want to know what they were up to? Thought so. Cherwell caught up with Katie and Romain between showrooms and shows to find out why they were there and what they had seen.
Name: Katie Pangonis
Fashion Week Credentials: Founder and Editor of Escapade, an inter-university fashion, travel, and lifestyle magazine based in Oxford.
Pass Type: Designer showrooms, including rooms dedicated to jewellery, shoes, bags, and accessories. The pass also gets you into events in the evenings such as new label launches and parties.
What I’ve been escaping the library for: This is the second time I’ve been to London Fashion Week as Editor of Escapade. This time I took our Deputy Editor, a couple of our contributers and our canine intern Alfred Billington. LFW is a great opportunity for us to get an insight into next season’s styles and trends so that we can start shaping the coming issue in terms of shoots and themes. Getting to see everything in advance is simply priceless, and pretty exciting. It also allows us to make contacts directly with designers. For example, last year we met Only Child London jewellery designer Kelly Jackson there, whom we then interviewed in our first issue.
Favourite Collections: Georgia Harding, Paper London, Ottoline, Eudon Choi, and Only Child.
Name: Romain Reglade
Fashion Week Credentials: Freelance photographer for Grazia Italia, and Marie Claire and Vogue in Latin America.
Pass Type: Backstage, at a series of shows including Burberry Prorsum, Erdem, Daks, Paul Smith, Issa, and Topshop Unique.
What I’ve been escaping the library for: I’ve been running between shows – in the rain! – taking photos of life backstage. This generally includes taking beauty shots after the makeup has been done; capturing the line-up, which is really cool, because it’s the first view of all the looks together, complete with outfit, hair and makeup; and then just random photos of the models backstage – they’re usually taking photos themselves, or reading and studying, like I should be!
Favourite things I’ve seen this week:The Topshop Unique showspace at Tate Britain, the makeup at Gareth Pugh, and the Hunter set – complete with waterfalls!
AW15 trends:
Faux Fur: Seen at Gareth Pugh, Ashish, Burberry Prorsum, Erdem, Topshop Unique, Matthew Williamson, Roksanda… need we go on? This trend is going nowhere for AW15.
Eighties: SS15 is all about the 70s (check outour70s-inspiredflareshootthisweek), but next season is bringing the 80s back in a rare moment of lineality for fashion. So put down that tan shearling and reach for something brighter. The more garish and the bigger the shoulder pads the better, à la J. W. Anderson, Roksanda and Vivienne Westwood Red Label.
Glam Punk: As a sub-section of the 80s trend, and as described by Jakk Hayes below. See Sibling and Paul Smith if you need more visuals.
Brights: In keeping with the 80s trend, AW15 is a far brighter prospect than the season usually is. Cobalt blue and bright orange are two to reach for in particular, as at David Koma.
