On the opening day of London Fashion Week, one of the most influential people in British fashion, Vivienne Westwood, left.
During the Fall-Winter 2023 London fashion week, a memorial service was held for the designer, who died in December. Some of the people there were Marc Jacobs, Kate Moss, and Helena Bonham Carter.
The British Fashion Council (BFC) also said London Fashion Week would honor the “priestess of punk.”
Matty Bovan, a designer from the North of England, is often compared to Vivienne Westwood because of her experimental shapes, love of clashing patterns, and use of “deadstock” materials. However, she has said that Westwood has greatly impacted her work.
There were more new labels than well-known names like Burberry and Christopher Kane. There were many firsts: After a show in 2020, the Greek label Di Petsa had its first catwalk, which was just as exciting as you might expect. A Chinese artist named Buerlangma showed his work for the first time at the London Fashion Week. He ended the show by wearing scary masks and gloves with long fingers.
Most importantly, Daniel Lee’s first collection for Burberry, which came out on Monday night, was great. He made the British-style house feel warm and punk.
On Tuesday, three Ukrainian designers showed the Fall/Winter collections they had been working on during the war. There wouldn’t have been a problem if Ksenia Schnaider, Frolov, and Paskal had shown up in Kyiv. Instead, London’s Ukrainian Fashion Week was a great chance to show off the country’s skills.
Other highlights at the London Fashion Week included animal prints made by artificial intelligence, such as piglets, baby chicks, and rats, at Christopher Kane, tiny ribbons instead of eyeliner at Simone Rocha, a nautical-themed show on Sunday night, and a couple of ivory bridal gowns at Richard Quinn.
During the London Fashion Week, there were a few times when people from different backgrounds were cast, but they were rare. Sage inspired Di Petsa’s collection, which was full of curves, while Brazilian-born Karoline Vitto’s collection was again made with bigger bodies in mind. Sinead O’Dwyer began the week with one of the most diverse groups of models on the schedule. Some of the models in this group had bigger bodies, one was in a wheelchair, and another was pregnant. But most of the models were thin, which shows that we still have a long way to go in the fight for true body positivity.
Baby bumps and clothes for kids
There were pregnant models in not just one but two shows at this edition of the London Fashion Week. Sinead O’Dwyer, who designs clothes for women, has always pushed for different body types. So, she put Tessa Kuragi, who was pregnant, on one of the early runways of the season. But Di Petsa, whose “royal wet look” dresses Kylie Jenner, Lizzo, and even Gigi Hadid wore in their last trimesters, started its Fall-Winter 2023 show with a pregnant model and made many pieces that looked like they were made for a baby bump. The label’s founder, Dimitra Petsa, sat on a rock in the middle of the catwalk and yelled, “Your belly button is the center of the planet!” This was done to emphasize the idea of delivery. Her ideas came from the Greek story of Persephone and ideas about being born again.
A young designer named Susan Fang also made it about her family. Monday was the first day that the brand sold clothes for kids. Little girls and boys wore poplin collared dresses with flowers on them. The kids were joined by adult models who wore the same clothes as the kids.
This season, art & commerce designers were split into two groups: those who took a more business-like approach, likely out of fear of another recession, and those who seemed to throw caution to the wind and put art before profit.
Natasha Zinko and Mowalola, two young fashion companies, found the funny side of fashion. For example, Zinko’s line had green plastic six-packs and Hulk-inspired cosmetics. It was funny that Mowalola’s jeans were cut so low that they reached his knees.
The miniskirts and corsets with ragged pleats that Dilara Findikoglu wore were in style, but there were times when she wore clothes just for fun: A piece of clothing with old silver knives on it, for example, fit the body well. At KWK by Kay Kwok, metal Aig shields were worn as jewelry. People wore neckties with ballooning and inflated pants at Harri’s buzzy show. Harri is the brand that made Sam Smith’s outfit for the Brit Awards go viral.
Some designers at the London Fashion Week, like 16Arlington, Ahluwalia, and David Koma, made polished party clothes that could be worn off the runway.
The London Fashion Week takes cultural cues
Even if you knew everything there was to know about fashion, it took a lot of work to understand some of the references in the Fall-Winter 2023 outfits. For example, American designer Connor Ives subtly referenced the 1998 movie “The Parent Trap,” which starred Lindsay Lohan, Natasha Richardson, and Dennis Quaid at his second London fashion week. Alex Consani, who has a lot of followers on TikTok, dressed up like a scene from the movie by wearing a wedding dress and a veiled top hat.
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Matty Bovan is also changed by what he sees in the movie. “Blade Runner” (1982) partly inspired his elaborate designs with a sci-fi look. (1982).
