Despite all eyes of the fashion crowd being on London these past days, the US and it’s uncertain political climate seemed to still be omnipresent. On the minds of the show goers and the clothes they saw on the runway. After seasons of consumer pleasing garments and accessories, designers seemed to finally be speaking, or sewing, their minds again.
The most eclectic version of political infused collections was probably the one of Indian born Designer Ashish Gupta, who first showed with his label Ashish at London Fashion Week in 2005 and this time around presented a collection full of glitter, colours and statements that didn’t leave much of his opinion to imagination. T-Shirts with slogans like “More Glitter, Less Twitter”, “Love Sees No Colour” and “Don’t give up the Daydream” were worn by models with wrestler masks painted on their faces, ready to battle any challenge that comes their way.
If Ashish’s collection equalled the rainbow put into clothes, that of Gareth Pugh was the exact opposite yet not less intriguing. Consisting of mostly black, the clothes were, as he said, influences by the “inescapable forces of the cultural landscape” and shown to a soundtrack that featured Donald Trump saying “Build that wall” over and over again.
Less striking though equally as eminent were the collections of Bora Aksu and Simone Rocha, who both embraced women with their choice of (role) models. Aksu looked to Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, who campaigned for women’s rights to vote at the beginning of the 20th century, while Rocha cast models like 70-year old Jan de Villeneuve and 73-year old Benedetta Barzini to walk on the runway, proving there is no such thing as being too old to work as a model.
Offside the runways the topic wasn’t less prominent: Dame Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-A-Porter, who held a speech at the beginning of London Fashion Week last Friday spoke about how “inclusivity is at the heart of British fashion, and London fashion week is a brilliant example of the diversity of this city”. With heavy name designers like Mary Katrantzou, who originally is from Greece, Erdem Moralioğlu, born in Canada with Turkish roots, or Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of design duo Marques Almeida, who closed LFW with their show yesterday and were raised in Portugal, this statement definitely couldn’t be more true – and relevant.
Header Image via Instagram (@ roxxsaurus)
