Now that the dust has settled on yet another London Fashion Week, fashion journalists from right across the globe are giving us their round ups of the week's events and the verdict...? Meh! Or, to quote Cathy Horyn from the New York Times, "despite the media thunder around British Fashion Week...no single first-rate talent emerged." And Horyn wasn't the only one who left feeling a little disappointed with what she saw. In regards to the Julien Macdonald show,Daily Mail reporter Liz Jones said it was "the most obscene, wanton, arbitrary use of fur...that I have ever seen.' Likewise, she was left unimpressed by London's poor attempt to follow through on its own crusade to only allow "healthy" models on its catwalks. "Were the girls really any more realistically curvy and healthy looking than six months ago? The flat answer is no," she said.
LFW: Jonathan Saunders, Preen & Hamish Morrow | LFW: Paul Smith | LFW: Christopher Kane
L-R: Roksanda Ilincic, Hamish Morrow and Gareth Pugh.
Even the Telegraph's Hilary Alexandermanaged to compile a strong list of "disasters" in her final hit and miss review. She named Hamish Morrow, Biba, Ann-Sofie Back, Roksanda Ilincic and even the recently celebrated Gareth Pugh shows as not making the grade. "Gareth Pugh may be bursting with directional and outlandish creativity, but it's time he put the black PVC and frightening face-masks away and produced some clothes real women might wear," she reported. Ouch!
On the other hand, she also went on to say that "when London Fashion Week was good, it was very, very good." Although, if organisers are smart they'll listen to Alexander's criticisms regarding the venues which she labelled a "logistical problem". "Grimy basements reached by ill-lit staircases and gloomy loft style floors accessible only by creaking cargo lifts or a smelly stroll down a fire escape with the odd mouse-trap en route are not the best places in which to launch stars." I guess you can't win them all...