Images from Top to Bottom: Daks, Todd Lynn, Jasper Conran AW13 @ Courtyard Show Space Somerset House
Despite this being somewhat a delayed post
on London Fashion Week, I felt that is was extremely important for me to give a
round up of the five-day event that takes over London in a plague like manner.
London really offers home to amazing design
talent namely Christopher Kane (congrats on the PPR backing), Giles Deacon,
Vivienne Westwood, Thomas Tait – the list is actually endless and can be fully
retrieved from the very useful London
Fashion Week website. As a budding writer, I have been attending the event
for the past six seasons now, participating in chugging champagne in the press
lounge and having drunken conversations with Harold Tillman through to waiting
on the cobbled entrance at Somerset House waiting to be photographed; I would
not be wearing killer heels for no other reason. Yes LFW has become an integral
part of my calendar and twice yearly I feel like I get to experience Christmas
all over again. Who doesn’t want to be a part of that?
Attending then, in the past six seasons I
have been able to first handedly see what makes London so special whilst
networking with so many people that I have had to make my own special box full
of business cards – how professional of me. In turn, I have added to a few Twitter
followers and sourced “emerging” talent as all niche publications like to call
it so I can be part of the next generation of writers that may ended forming
the next Dazed and Confused (one can only dream). Taking you back to the point,
this season I was especially sad when I was unable to attend the collections
(work commitments and an excruciating wisdom tooth taking precedence). I was
for once thankful to our digital era and took comfort in the fact that I could
watch the shows from the comfort of my own sofa, office chair and nearest
Starbucks (Well, it wouldn’t be Fashion Week without it).
And so came Friday 15th
February, a morning I eagerly anticipated following a rather dry Valentines Day,
which I was not too hung up on because fashion people have no time for romance
(sarcasm included). After a long drive to work that was made interesting thanks
to Grimmy’s show on Radio 1, I arrived ready to see the first show of the day,
namely the first London show of AW13, Zoe Jordan. What I love most about the
live stream from Somerset House is that is allows you to see the Courtyard Show
Space as fashionistas and bloggers are all crammed in ready to take or in some
cases fight for their seats. It also allows you to smirk and laugh out loud at
the PR’s that often shove you out the way or claim there is no more room when
in fact, at the very last minute they need a tonne of fashion anybody’s to fill
the empty seats because nobody likes an empty show, am I right?
All jokes aside, this is the part of my
experience that I found hard to forget and became the pinnacle of my entire
week. As the lights were turned down, and by no doubt photographers began
shouting at items that were blocking the front row like New York traffic, the
protective sheet covering the runway was finally pulled away and I was as ready
as Hilary Alexander, notepad and biro in hand. The spotlights came on and the
room fell into silence and there it was, so shockingly beautiful that I almost
had to use my hand to close my mouth. THE FLOOR IN THE SHOW SPACE HAD BEEN
REPLACED. Yes you heard it right here, replaced by a sexy new wooden floor that
captivated my attention for a few significant seconds. These seconds became so
significant that I wanted the first look to get off the runway so I could
examine the flooring a bit more.
Each season, the British Fashion council
like to change things up, from the arrangement of the exhibitions through to
the layout of the press area etc because why would they not? Somerset House is
a beautiful landmark to play with. But never in my short 6 or so seasons have I
seen a dark mahogany floor as stunning as this. As the week went on, it only
got better and better from the raised platform at Todd Lynn through to the shiny
seductive red flooring at Jasper Conran. To put it simply, the Courtyard Show
Space holds no limits as evident in the exquisite taste in interior décor.
Stayed tuned as I checked the interiors of
the rest of the floors across the fashion capitals.
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