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Don't you dare call it frivolous, now we need fashion more than ever
Laura Craik, Fashion Editor23.02.09
DOOM! Gloom! Misery! Truly, there isn't much to be cheerful about these days. But we all need a little escapism in these troubling times and London Fashion Week is the very place to find it. The prospect of all those wonderful clothes is guaranteed to put a spring in your step, however high the Rupert Sandersons you might be wearing. For there is nothing more feelgood than fashion.
Given the current financial climate, there are those - usually men - who will inevitably carp that a neon pink dress with oversized paillettes and a price tag of £1,000 is not really what is needed right now, when most people are struggling even to shop at Sainsbury's. Quite why the fashion industry has to justify its existence in a recession when the film industry does not, I do not know but it is probably bound up in Britain's inherent mistrust of any industry that is creative. But anyone who sees fit to align fashion with the sort of mindless excess that got us into this mess in the first place is mistaken: bankers, not ballgowns, are to blame.
Whatever the haters might opine, fashion matters even more in a recession, not less. It is the second- largest employer in the UK, worth a total of £40 billion. Yet for all its creative and financial importance, it is still too often treated as some trifling sort of niche market.
This is a curious anomaly. London Fashion Week, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, generates more than £100 million each season in worldwide business and editorial coverage worth more than £50 million in Britain alone. In an export industry that is worth £7 billion a year, it is the crown jewel.
Happily, London's Mayor recognises the vital role that fashion plays in the city's economic success, with the London Development Agency spending £40,000 to ensure that key foreign buyers attend London Fashion Week this season.
The Government, too, is showing renewed signs of support. Last season's Downing Street reception, hosted by Sarah Brown to honour key designers, press and buyers, was very welcome, if a little overdue. Mrs Brown will also take a tour of the exhibition stands today, though she has decided not to attend any fashion shows.
Given economic conditions, that this season's event has shrunk by only four shows - 51 instead of last September's 55 - is a testament to London Fashion Week's standing as a global platform. It also shows how hard the British Fashion Council (BFC), under the guidance of chief executive Hilary Riva, has worked to establish long-term sponsorships and support systems.
Retail giants such as Sir Philip Green have also given unwavering support, bankrolling a number of shows for less established names. Sir Philip is enlightened enough to realise that the relationship between high fashion and high street can be symbiotic. That so many of our designers work at both ends of the price spectrum, enabling their clothes to be affordable not merely to the very rich, is a trait unique to London.
London is also the only city where the big-name models are happy to work for free, in exchange for clothes. Our designers cannot afford the astronomical fees that the biggest girls command, so they barter instead. Even excluding the fees for top models, with the minimum cost of staging a catwalk show estimated to be £25,000 - though most are much pricier - it is clear that all but the most established designers need financial help.
Rather than skip the season, a number of designers have chosen to show their collections in smaller, more intimate ways, though this is not due to the downturn alone. Designers Maria Grachvogel and Duru Olowu have opted for salon-style presentations because they say they feel this best befits their clothes.
If there is one defining characteristic of this season's event, it is that it is a far more focused affair. The traditional accompaniments to a catwalk show - the ornate stage sets, the lavish venues and the celebrity front rows - have been reined in. But this is no bad thing: it means there is a renewed focus on the clothes.
It is all too easy to be negative in a recession but negativity will not help the British fashion industry. Surely it is better to focus on the positives. For all the economic uncertainty, the future for London Fashion Week looks bright. Next season, the event moves to a brand new venue, Somerset House - a cause for celebration among those who dislike its current location in SW7.
Yes, times are hard but fashion traditionally thrives in a recession. The last recession, in the early Nineties, spawned Hussein Chalayan and Alexander McQueen, two names that have gone on to achieve global success. There is no reason not to suppose that this recession will push equally bright new talent to the fore.
To this end, the Government, and London's Mayor, need to continue their support. The banks, too, need to remember that most British designers are small businesses that need to be treated with leniency, rather than having their credit brutally cut off.
For London has talent by the bagful. Thanks to the world-renowned excellence of its fashion colleges, our city attracts the cream of design talent from all over the globe, many of whom graduate straight from studying here to showing their collections here. Of all the four major fashion capitals, London is the most truly international. Paris might have the household names, but London is the place to spot new talent.
The desire for beautiful clothing will always be present in a woman's heart, regardless of her ability to afford it. It is to this desire that London Fashion Week caters, more imaginatively than any other fashion capital in the world. These are the clothes that dreams are made of.
In these trying times, surely we need our dreams more than ever.
Reader views (3)
No, we don't need dreams. We need to face reality and try to do something about it.
- Dee, london
Frivolous, frivolous, frivolous, frivolous, frivolous... This is the industry that took an anti-fur stance once and then re-embraced it as soon as it was "fashionable" again...
Frivolous, frivolous, frivolous.
- John Polenski, Alhaurin el Grande, Spain
We need clothing, certainly, but overpriced rags (often made by slave labour in a third world country) designed to make any wearer look like a cut price hooker is another matter.
Fashions` reason for being is to pamper the spendaholic with low personal self esteem - the landfills are overflowing with "ex-fashionable" garments that have only been worn two or three times - obscene.
Those who live like this are the very bluntest end of the very slickest marketing, serving the most parasitical and least necessary industries on earth, those being "fashion" and it`s twin sister, cosmetics.
- Darius Midwinter, London UK
