London Fashion Week attracts most fanatic followers

By Dini S. Djalal

LONDON (JP): The fairground was still lit, as were the tennis courts, but on the last evening of September Spitalfields Market was awash in a sea of black.

That's black leather, black tulle, black laminated lace, the de riguer fabrics this season. London Fashion Week was closing, and label hoarders from all continents had gathered here to cheer or censure the Spring 1998 collection of Julien MacDonald, currently the Next Big Thing.

Plucked by Karl Lagerfeld two years ago off the graduating roster of the Royal College of Art to knit for Chanel and his own Lagerfeld label, MacDonald is being rocket-launched into the far nether of fashion's stratosphere.

What goes up, however, must come down. And after five days of lining up for the 54 catwalk shows and scanning the goods of the 150 exhibitors (thrice more than in 1993 to make it London's biggest-ever Fashion Week), even fashion's most fanatic followers, wobbling in their compulsory stilettos, were swapping air kisses for curses.

"If I see another sheer shirt, I'm leaving," said a frazzled journalist, one of 700 covering the event, lamenting the collections' overkill of diaphanous fabrics.

Of course she didn't, and neither did Alexander McQueen, London-bred designer for French couturier Givenchy who attended the show. Instead, the 600-strong audience whooped and hollered for MacDonald when he bounded down the runway in an ecstatic grin, as though he could not believe his luck.

However genuinely extraordinary MacDonald's rise has been, he shouldn't be that surprised. London is now, the media insists to the chagrin of long-time Londoners, the "coolest place on earth".

British fashion, once derided as weird and wacky, has evolved into a nucleus of innovation, a hotbed of exportable talent and trends. MacDonald's filigree-fine creations, which cost up to 25,000, have helped etched London into a stylist's Filofax, but he is also, simply, at the right place and the right time.

After all, the fashion industry, boasting 264 million of designer exports last year, has not boomed in a vacuum. The Union Jack is flying proudly over film studios, advertising offices, art galleries, record shops, nightclubs, and restaurants -- all businesses thriving with international cache. London hasn't seen anything like it since the early 1980s.

British designers storming Paris (John Galliano at Dior, McQueen at Givenchy, Stella McCartney at Chloe) are making headlines, but designer togs actually count for only 10 percent of the retail boom. The real story is on the high street, with retail chains like Marks and Spencer jotting annual worldwide sales of 4 billion in fashion goods.

Not that catwalk chic is irrelevant. In fact, London fashion's high profile can partly be attributed to the new sponsorship from department stores. The partnerships -- Marks and Spencer with Ghost, Dorothy Perkins with Clements Ribeiro, Debenhams with Pearce Fionda, and BHS with Owen Gaster -- are mutually beneficial; designers give the stores street-cred, and the stores give the designers more cash flow to finance their shows, which can cost up to 100,000 to produce.

Paul Currie, franchising director of retailer River Island, the biggest privately owned business in the UK, says that over- the-top catwalk shows directs what are in the stores, thus keeping mainstream retailers up on the latest trends.

"The big name designers may have a small share of the industry, but two years on, their influence on colors, shapes, and fabrics, is huge. It's just that by then, the wild styles will have become fashion moderate," said Currie.

Torn to shreds

It's certainly not moderate now. Tomasz Starzewski, darling of lunching ladies including the late Diana, Princess of Wales, kicked off Fashion Week with the standard gold-button suits and frilly ballgowns favored by Sloane Street debutantes.

But by the time MacDonald sent out Naomi Campbell in neon hotpants and Jodie Kidd in slivers of mohair, high society's wardrobe had been, literally, torn to shreds. In fact, the one common thread weaving together the collections seemed to be the lack of thread altogether.

Take John Rocha, the British Fashion Council's Designer of the Year in 1994 and 1995. He draped fine copper fringes over fragile lace, or barely sheathed models in cobweb knits so gauzy they seem unraveled halfway from the loom. In a stark white studio, Hussein Chalayan, made press-worthy when pop star Bjork donned his paper dresses, had blank-eyed models shuffle in sheer knits with armholes gaping to mid-thigh.

Barely there the clothes may be, but what is there is exquisite. What has saved the shock tactics are fabric experiments that explore the feminine while retaining futuristic edge.

When not wrapping models in iridescent ivory paper-like taffeta, new designer Mark Whitaker, who showed an installation instead of a conventional catwalk show, printed satin orchids on sheer silks in vivid oranges and pinks.

Designing duo Clements Ribeiro did the ubiquitous embroidery on chiffon -- tropical fish this time -- but also put silks into a paper shredder, elaborating another key look: fringes and asymmetrical hems.

Matthew Williamson, who had Mick Jagger's daughter Jade on the runway, dipped his twinsets and Evita skirts into a technicolor pool, coming out with citron camisoles and lavender cashmere sweet enough to eat.

Blink before the floodlights, however, and you can miss these delicate details. King of kitsch Antonio Berardi, previously assistant to Galliano, kitted out glamor girls in his trademark delicate embroidery, but on slices of skirts too short for even the most cellulite-free gams.

Berardi said before the show that he doesn't want to make "irrelevant clothes", but will rhinestone cowboy chic, bordello bustiers and Dolly Parton frills be relevant to a working woman's wardrobe?

Don't bother answering: to shock is a British designer's pastime. And who would know better than Alexander McQueen, notorious for attaching rams' horns onto jackets, bird claws onto earrings, tampon strings around waists. Yet the surprise this week is that Berardi showed less restraint than McQueen, about whom he made the "irrelevant" remark. McQueen, on the other hand, said his show, "is about precision".

The result? Precisely the season's finest. The collection highlighted McQueen's Saville-Row-trained tailoring juxtaposed against his unrivaled pattern innovations. Simpler silhouettes -- strapless gowns and suits cut close to the body -- but not textures. Sinewy snakeskin, leathers finely perforated into a starburst print, mazes of seams and embroidery zigzagging pencil skirts, chainmails of copper thread hugging bare flesh.

Many of the suits and dresses were joined at the hip by zippers, another clever trick -- albeit not a practical one, as they reportedly took eight minutes a time to zip into. Backstage mayhem mattered little to the audience, however, as they raved when rain fell on the perplex catwalk, drenching the all-white muslin toga gowns worn by models with tears streaming down their faces. It was skillful drama, but without excess.

Mad styling

Yet in the cacophony of mad styling and staging, technical mastery and design skills are often lost. Which is why true talent showed through more at the exhibitors' tents, where buyers can feel the softness of the new leathers and laces, than on the catwalks.

Witness 33 year-old Elspeth Gibson, who after only three collections supplies upscale U.S. department stores such as Barney's with her fine chantilly lace and cobweb knit dresses. Shock value, says Gibson, is not all you need to make it into fashion now -- it's commercial skills that will last you through the hype. Before launching her own line, Gibson spent years learning the industry at Zandra Rhodes and Monix.

Publicity bulbs flashing before young designers, adds Gibson, hardly cut away the thorns on the path to success. "There's definitely more competition now," Gibson said.

Lezley George, who has seen the industry ebb and flow in her nine years of designing, agrees that it is now "harder to stand out". And buyers descending onto London, said George, don't necessarily mean they are buying.

"People come here to be excited, but are they here to buy? Many just come to see the theatrical shows, to see direction, get inspiration," said George.

Hip menswear designer Burro, which exports to Japan as well as dressing Britpop royalty Oasis and Blur, complains that often buyers and designers pillage London for new trends, without crediting the sources.

"We get big time designers buying bags of our clothes to copy for their collections. It's flattering but also frustrating. But at least their copies won't make it into the stores for another year," said Tim Parker, Burro's sales director.

Trends come and go, however, and setting them is no guarantee for long-term profits. Fashion's fickle ways are now a blessing for London, but can as quickly turn into blight. "London is not going to be cool forever," said Lezley George.

And designers are not better at production, merchandising, and marketing, all essential skills in transforming a short-lived buzz into a healthy business. "In the 1980s, the bubble burst very quickly because designers couldn't meet the orders," George says. "I don't think that will happen again because they're now more professional."