MashBlur

If fashion is a passion, 2016 London Fashion Week was its manifesto. From dark, Gothic-style, and even somewhat aggressive casual wear to huge blanket-inspired coats in nude and soft pink to glamorous skirts embroidered with sparkling crystals to chic cigarette pants to shift dresses with hourglass detailing and grid-patterned fine gauge knits, and so on and so forth.

We used to consider London Fashion Week as an event created to provide an exclusive experience for the selected few. This year, thanks to the improvements in the technical aspect of the event, LFW turned toward the consumers focusing on capturing their attention and generating the excitement of the wide audience. The designers built a whole world around their collections using all available tools from sound to set to the architecture of the space. We can also clearly observe the democratizing influence of street style that occurred due to the growing popularity of social media and globalization. All this made fashion industry both individualistic and universal.

A handful of amazingly talented designers made a strong case for understated dressing. For example, designers Fran Stringer and Margaret Howell were the representatives of the new crop of minimalists in London. They served as a counterpoint to the urban experimental sensibility.

So, over and out, 2016 London Fashion Week.

The more black color dominated, the more anxiously-pink details sticked out on its background in the new collection of Alexander McQueen. The clothes had an extraordinary softness. The whole line was inspired by female fecundity and gentle sexuality. Models were literally blossoming under the strict tailoring of coats and duvet dressing robes. Butterflies of different sizes and colors were everywhere, shadowy black birds embroidered over butterflies. And vice versa, and again.

In combination with the pictures of a clock, the butterflies created one holistic theme that revolved around the concepts of time, birth, death, and reincarnation. There were plenty of nude dresses, lacy bras seen under the jackets, and even the wondrous duvet-inspired down jacket looked like it just came from the royal bedroom. The dreamy collection turned to be full of boudoir and punk. To add some extra sparkle, Sarah Burton included a beaded dress with a unicorn into the collection. In short, romanticism was in every piece of tissue, in every button.

The British fashion house returned to the homeland only for a single season. Anyway, it was a fairy homecoming for the Lee McQueen label and creative director Sarah Burton. After showing in the French capital for the past fifteen years, the London-born fashion house was back on its native turn with a fascinating dark yet romantic lineup. Welcome home, dear Alexander!

Black evening wear is hardly revolutionary, but Simone Rocha’s looks are not the usual little black dresses. With all these Edward-inspired touches, long sleeves, luxurious fabrics, and floor-length hems, the collection looked like the new luxe formal wear trend of the upcoming season.

Black Gothic dresses seemingly referring us to the Victorian era with its stern matrons and nursemaids could also be perfect clothes for mourning, serve as attire for elderly women or spinsters. Such perfect looks for cinematography! Loose threads and unraveling hems, history and romanticism, red and black, shadowy and naive—every inch of Simone Rocha’s collection was crafted in order to force us to feel serious and romantic at the same time. Familiar bubble dresses in coarse tweeds came with embellished sleeves that passed into thin organza gloves. When models’ hands were not bound to their bodies with thick swathes of fabric, they held leopard print bags. Covered with the thinnest organza layer and embellished with buttons and jewels, models looked like ghosts. There has not been a single piece without Simone’s usual ploy—use of pearls and shuttlecocks.

In 2014, Simone became the winner of the British Fashion Awards. Her attire is recognizable. In her collection, the designer demonstrated something that has always been the main value in the luxury segment—laborious work and complicated technical execution.

Oh, we nearly forgot about her sundress over the dress. What a great and simple example of trendy multilayering!

Ashish Gupta does not lack straightforwardness. If sequins invasion is not enough for you, he is always ready to give you a new portion of fairy dust. And a matching colorful XXL afro in addition. The runway at Brewer Street Car Park was taken over by a bright explosion of disco. Have you ever seen such a crazy rainbow of shimmery clothes and extreme afros?

At each show of the London Fashion Week, it seems almost as if the models come right from the past Fashion Weeks: Simone Rocha’s Renaissance, Erdem’s 30s, Marques’ Almeida’s 90s. And finally, Ashish’s weird and sweet 70s. So, the nostalgia culture is absolutely understandable. For the fall/winter 2016 collection, the designer chose the style of the seventies’ disco queen—to be precise, lots and lots of seventies’ disco queens. The cult brand known for its heavy usage of sequins and embellishment in almost all of its collections did not abandon the tradition this time either.

London Fashion Week is known for its mad and astonishing looks, but one of the new season styles gave us the creeps. British designer Gareth Pugh has received world recognition for his approach to redefining modern luxury. His experimental forms are described as wearable sculptures.

Remember the cannibalistic doctor Hannibal Lecter from “Silence Of The Lambs”? Now imagine the Grand Temple of Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden, which is eerie enough alone, and then add the catwalk of models wearing Hannibal Lecter restraint masks. All this together made up Gareth Pugh’s autumn/winter 2016 show.

Beautiful strict skirt suits, electric blue wool covered with embroidered stars, terrific military-style coats with big gold buttons, face-framing collars, flaring pants—this fall collection hinged on demonstrative, strong-shouldered tailoring.

The graduate show of the latest batch of the Central Saint Martins MA students has long had a place on the schedule of LFW. Furthermore, it was one of the most anticipated events there, especially due to the college’s global fame of the most fertile fashion institute: Lee McQueen, Christopher Kane, Craig Green, Ashish, and many other influencing clothing designers are its alumni.

The class of 2016 looked fresh, unafraid, individualistic. No one copied. Each show was modern and all about contradictions. And, as usual, quirkiness defined the MA students’ final-year collections.

There was everything: from glamorous glitter to chic minimalism to quality tailored menswear to sophisticated womenswear. Highlights included Richard Quinn‘s floral insanity, John Alexander Skeleton‘s flamboyant silhouettes of the surrealists, Abzal Issa Bekov‘s ode to homosexuality and masculinity, Kiko Kostadinov’s workwear-inspired menswear, and Harry Evans’ reference to folk costumes and 80s couture. The real kaleidoscope of patterns, colors, forms, fabrics, and ideas.