What we learned at London Fashion Week

Whether bearing crowns or pushing boundaries, London Fashion Week was all about strong women. Rachel Marie Walsh reports

Female empowerment is an odd thing to have sold to you, whether the vehicle is body wash or fashion week, but it is hard to be cynical when its drawn from the air.

So many designers spoke about female strength as inspiration this season, from personal influences to the current political mood.

Richard Malone took “deeply fabulous working-class females who refuse to be bound” as muses.

Gareth Pugh closed with his “house mother,” a striking, heavily pregnant blonde in a body-con gown.

There were also a lot of catwalk ‘birthdays’ reminding us of London Fashion Week’s support for female design.

Among them were Jenny Packham, celebrating its thirtieth, Victoria Beckham’s tenth and Alexa Chung’s schedule debut.

There was little mention of the ‘B’ word, not even from the new Minister for the Creative Industries, though she did stress how important fashion is to the Prime Minister.

London Fashion Week, now 34, has never happened in a UK outside the EU. The SS21 shows, to be held next September, will be its first time according to the government’s current exit strategy, and for the moment it keeps its focused anxiety and carries on.

Fashion waits for no man and there was a lot to learn in London this week.

Irish designers get better and better

Richard Malone kicked off the official schedule with his best effort yet.

Shown to Mariah Carey’s Fantasy and a gem from a 1996 Cher interview on loop (“My mom said to me ‘One day you should settle down and marry a rich man” I said ‘Mom, I am a rich man’”), this was a wearable, beautiful collection you’d walk right out of a showroom with, were you Daphne Guinness.

Mermaid dresses and micro-minis, tasseled tube skirts and power-shouldered jackets all came in a visual feast of fuchsia, purple, banana-yellow and lime.

Newry-native Katie Ann McGuigan promoted unity through style in the basement of the London Film Museum with her first standalone presentation.

What the venue lacked in ventilation it more than made up for in fun, with models dancing and tossing a football that referenced the collection’s World Cup theme.

She clearly likes a Fifties silhouette and who among us doesn’t find that flattering?

Alexa Chung can dress a departures lounge

The omni-talented Alexa Chung had her eponymous brand’s first LFW show on Saturday.

She is a model, broadcaster, author and a some-time designer for M&S and Madewell, among other collaborations. She chatted about “imposter syndrome” backstage but it’s hard to imagine any designer on the schedule rejecting her, particularly as she’s sat front row at most of their shows.

Her design choices are super-safe, very commercial. It is not diminishing her efforts to say your mum will love this stuff, particularly if she had her style awakening in the Seventies.

Inspired be “arrivals and departures,” the looks remind us that travel was once something for which one dressed.

As with the star’s personal style, Pattie Boyd and Jane Birkin are clear influences on prints and details but there is also a practical conservatism to the clothes: a neat midi-skirt, many a versatile blouse — perhaps products of what she’s learned from Marks.

I see Topshop copies in this brand’s future but plus ça change for Ms Chung.

Victoria Beckham is (a) ten, dressed to the nines

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Speaking of ladies with well-strung bows, Victoria Beckham was in town to celebrate a decade of her own brand.

It is not uncommon for British designers who’ve made good abroad to celebrate 10-year anniversaries at home (Matthew Williamson’s 10th birthday show, which included a surprise Prince performance in Eaton Square, has yet to be topped), and VB, an ex-Essex girl who now resides in West London, always turns heads.

She is regularly photographed in her own ‘Eva’ pumps with matching clutch, both of which are available in special ‘anniversary’ editions.

She also recreated the 2008 Marc Jacobs shoot in which she appears to have fallen in a giant shopping bag and put the image on a limited-edition t-shirt.

Local supermodels Stella Tennant and Edie Campbell donned the catwalk clothes, which included some super-pretty lace camisoles, handkerchief-hemmed dresses and sheer blouses paired with tailored, wide-leg trousers.

Her collection also included summer suiting, a trend that was big both in London and New York, where she usually shows.

City shorts are definitely a ‘do’ for next season and there were a lot of Eighties-cut shoulders on suit jackets at Chalayan, Emilia Wickstead and Push Button.

A Little (or Long) White Dress will be your new LBD

JW Anderson is also ten this year but that brand never left London (unlike the Northern Irishman himself, whose projects with Spanish brand Loewe take him around the world).

The 34-year-old really has come a long way, it is hard to connect the flowing, pretty looks for Spring to his first show, not least because that one had no obvious women’s wear.

The fluidity here was not gender-based but all about females, specifically girls on-the-go. Shod in Chuck Taylors (Anderson’s Converse collaboration continues), models blazed down the catwalk in striped blankets cut like flowing dresses, extra-long tuxedo shirts and angelic plissé tunic dressed.

Girls in white dresses have been favourites among a few other designers this fashion month, including Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, Richard Quinn and Erdem.

An LWD is shaping up to be a spring/summer staple.

Riccardo Tisci breathes new life into Burberry

Christopher Bailey’s bold and complex departure from Burberry was completely different from Riccardo Tisci’s debut.

The new Creative Director’s clothes were very pared-down and preppy, in contrast to the layers of prints and textures that characterised Bailey’s multi-season, see-now/buy-now looks of recent years.

If this was a ‘Kingdom’ as he called the collection, it looked very Camelot, with relaxed tailoring and lots of camel and pastel shades.

The show was also celebrity-free; the catwalk lined with roomy seats for press and buyers, whereas Burberry is typically heaving with Hollywood flown-ins and young musicians.

The trenches go on, of course, but designers are feeling the trenchcoat for spring anyway, with long belted things also showing up at Alexa Chung, Roksanda and Rejina Pyo.

Indulge in volume and ruffles

I sometimes wonder if fashion’s recent passion for ruffles is just a chance for skinny fashionistas to experience bulk without changing their figures.

The Beyoncés and Kim Ks of this world cannot be interested in filling out with all these bust frills and tiered skirts, after all, and yet their cultural impact is hard to keep off the catwalks while still moving beyond body-con.

The romance of the fluttery things is also appealing, and one got the impression Simone Rocha was really feeling the Royal Wedding while planning her latest offering.

Shown in Lancaster House, where The Crown has been shot, she layered them over voluminous skirts and pretty floral-prints.

Ruffles were also on display at Emilia Wickstead, Erdem and Delpozo.

Shine, even in daytime

Metallic shimmer is apparently wasted on evening wear, if the midi-skirts and dresses at Markus Lupfer, Halpern and David Koma.

Designers didn’t limit themselves to one shade, either, with ombré shine more common than any other kind.

Gareth Pugh’s beautifully sculpted, futuristic mini-dresses were my favourite take on this trend but as he said he designed them with outsiders in mind I assume they won’t be everyone’s.

PVC coats with a little shine seem a useful means of both getting the look and avoiding spring showers and there should be plenty around.