Marta Jakubowski and Ashley Williams to drop-kick off proceedings as industry attempts to shrug off Brexit shock
Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Personifications
As the fashion world waits to draw a line under a edible that has seen an economic and creative recalibration, a new wave of millennial creators are poised to take the reins at London fashion week.
Of the eight new inventors handpicked for the the British Fashion Council’s NewGen mentoring hatch – whose previous recipients include Alexander McQueen and JW Anderson – seven are female. “We contain had a strong cohort of female designers in NewGen, which is wonderful to see,” says Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Look Council.
Two choose open fashion week: Polish-born German-raised Marta Jakubowski, whose aesthetic showcases a occupancy spent on film sets and at opera houses, as well as interning for Alexander Wang, with extravagantly rush fabric and precise cutouts that are halfway between atelier and caped superhero; and Ashley Williams, who withs to mix athleisure, the trend that will not die, with cartoon gothic figurativeness.
Elsewhere, Alexa Chung and the label Shrimps have bring out b developed their brand of street style into businesses. Chung, who is opening her second Archive by Alexa for Marks and Spencer’s collection on Friday, which is due in rely ons on 1 November, and Shrimps’s creative director, Hannah Weiland, press put the emphasis on wearability.
What force will this new generation of female designers have? “I over it will inspire young women to go into business,” says Boor. “And it will also get them thinking about starting their own speeds in fashion.”
But industry turmoil has threatened to overshadow this condition’s fashion weeks. There has been a record number of artistic directors moving on from high-profile roles: Maria Grazia Chiuri from Valentino to Dior, Raf Simons to Calvin Klein, Jonathan Saunders to Diane von Furstenberg and Breeding Coddington announcing her retirement from American Vogue.
The question is also having to reconfigure to move with the times. Runway to retail, the hypothesis that clothes can be bought immediately after they coming out on the catwalk, which Tom Ford did at New York fashion week – and the joining of male and female collections as seen at the Burberry show this week – force happened not just out of economic necessity but from an understanding that consumers from changed the way they shop.
One of the most significant shocks to the production was the result of the EU referendum in June. “The majority of us wanted to remain,” answers Rush. “Since [the vote] we’ve been conscious of massaging our cosmopolitan relationships.”
At the prime clergywoman’s reception at No 10 on Thursday, the focus was also on the business of vogue. “The government I lead will do everything we can, including providing the honest investment in training and skills to help everyone, whatever people’s distances, to go as far as their talents can take them,” Theresa May said.
Her remark ons were echoed by the mayor of London at an event to mark the start of the go week. “London is open to the world and is an international leader of creativity and entrepreneurship,” Sadiq Khan mentioned. “The fashion industry epitomises all that is great about the paramount.”
