The Sunday of London Fashion Week (LFW) is normally one of the busiest, with fashion editors, style stars and photographers rushing around the city to fit in as many shows as they can.
The pace of this LFW is much slower – with fewer major names on the schedule, and most doing digital shows or videos to showcase their latest collection – but it’s still been an impactful day.
Here’s everything you missed from day four of this new kind of fashion week…
Emilia Wickstead
Emilia Wickstead’s LFW offering might not have been the most innovative video we’ve seen over the weekend – it features a group of models walking around a room with a plain white background – but it shows off the designer’s new collection in the best way possible.
Wickstead’s designs are all about strong silhouettes, tailoring and a mix of masculine and feminine, and this season is no different. The outfits are structural, with nipped-in waists, bustling skirts and a whole lot of shirting. Wickstead kept the colour palette clean and fresh, with plenty of monochromes, reds, florals and nautical patterns. One of the most surprising elements of the collection is the prevalence of underwear as outerwear, showing this racy trend can be modern, elegant and high fashion.
Wickstead chose an interesting range of models – alongside the young beauties are Ruth Chapman (58, Matchesfashion.com co-founder) and Caroline Issa, the fashion editor and long-time friend of the designer. This season might not break any fashion boundaries, but there’s no doubt Wickstead’s fans – including Cate Blanchett and Saoirse Ronan – will find much to like.
Emilio de la Morena
Fashion is a reflection of what’s happening in the world around us, and that’s exactly what London-based Spanish designer Emilio de la Morena’s collection is about. Called 5 Troubles, the video shows dancers moving to represent noise, obsession, rage, sex/love and money.
There isn’t much variety in the actual fashion – all the dancers wear skintight jumpsuits in different colours – but the beauty looks do stand out. De la Morena makes a case for thick, color-blocked eyeshadow in reds, blacks or pinks – a bold but wearable look.
The video is accompanied by a physical exhibition showcasing the collection from September 21 at Noho Studios London.
Paria Farzaneh
British-Iranian designer Paria Farzaneh was on the schedule as having an ambiguously named ‘experience’, and delivered one of the more dramatic shows of the season. Filmed somewhere in the countryside, the show starts big with pyrotechnics and eerie music. Models emerge from a thick forest to walk the field-cum-catwalk, with drones filming them from above.
The models assemble in the middle of the field, wearing utilitarian clothes with lots of parkas, hoodies and fishermen’s vests in olives, browns and army prints. Adding to the slightly weird, edgy vibe of the show, it ends with the models circling the makeshift front row, displaying the clothes for one last time and then walking off in a line.
palmer//harding
Regular catwalk shows aren’t the most personal of things, so there’s a huge opportunity for designers to share more of themselves in these digital presentations. That’s exactly what Levi Palmer and Matthew Harding of palmer//harding have done with their LFW offering.
The short video features family members – including their mothers, cousins and sisters – talking about a range of subjects, from their experiences of the pandemic, to what makes them feel beautiful and the things they’re looking forward to in the future.
It’s refreshing to see regular women modelling the latest collection from palmer//harding, and the clothes themselves are characteristic of the brand: lots of bold silhouettes and tailoring with feminine touches.
Fashion East
This is a particularly momentous weekend for Fashion East, the incubator responsible for nurturing top talent in the industry, as it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary. Fashion East has propelled some big names to fame, including Ashley Williams, Matty Bovan and Simone Rocha.
While it couldn’t have the blow-out party everyone would have wanted, Fashion East instead aired a film showcasing the work of four up-and-coming designers: Saul Nash, Nensi Dojaka, Goom Heo and Maximilian Davis. With Nineties-inspired minimalism given a 2020 twist, bold fringing and colourful parkas, we can be sure the future of fashion is in safe hands.
