The Top 10 Collections of London Fashion Week

A London Fashion Week that ended with Queen Elizabeth II attending a NewGen designer’s show is one for the history books—and for the future hopes of British fashion. Richard Quinn’s exuberant collaging and clashing of chintzy English florals was fully within this backwards-forwards mindset, a very British creative design trait. It was also exactly the energy that fueled Christopher Bailey’s epic exit collection at Burberry in many ways, a self-portrait of his teenage self and his hometown in the ’80s, but also a rainbow flag–flying statement about LGBTQ+ freedoms now and for the future. Erdem Moralioglu, too, went into the past and pulled out Adele Astaire’s flapper, showgirl-in-tweeds wardrobe for his show in the halls of the National Portrait Gallery, while Simone Rocha had looked at John Constable’s portraits—both ideas within the defined aesthetics Moralioglu and Rocha have carved out for themselves.

In this age of appropriation, London’s fashion culture has something more to add to the forward momentum of the industry on a wider scale—chiefly because it’s a country full of top-notch, intellectual fashion educators who eviscerate students for turning out lazy approximations of what’s already on the market. British art education breeds people (who are, by the way, from many countries) who are inculcated with the principle that their work is only valid if they’re true to themselves. That’s why outlier creativity is cultured in London, whether at the startup level or persisting through the growth of personal perspectives season after season. At the young end, you have Matty Bovan’s bonkers ball gowns and Richard Malone’s good-humored swirl of ethically-produced fashion. At the other: Christopher Kane progressing his personal obsession with the pleasure principle of human sexuality, making clothes which haven’t been seen before. Way back, it used to be said that London designers were too naive to build brands. Jonathan Anderson, with his polished professionalism and ability to nail wearable products, gives the lie to that, as do so many others here.

Below, our highlights from an optimistic week for the future of fashion’s creativity and commerce.

Burberry

“‘It was really me, aged 15,’ laughed Christopher Bailey as he was being body-hugged and kissed by friends and well-wishers at the end of a show that was the grand finale of his 17 years at Burberry. In so many ways, it was the most autobiographical and heartfelt collection of his career—an honest, symbolic revisiting of the place of his first fashion awakening, a dive club in a basement in Halifax, Yorkshire, and all the DIY teen-tribe styles that rolled through British street culture in the ’80s and ’90s. For a man who has often spoken about being driven to make Burberry a ‘democratic’ brand, and who’s now lived to see all the things that a working-class, homosexual boy like him would once have been bullied or looked down on for brought out in the open, accepted, and admired? Amazing. That is surely why Bailey chose to wave farewell to Burberry in the way he did: with a collection full of the symbolism of gay pride and with a large donation to youth charities that support LGBTQ+ rights and mental health.” —Sarah Mower

JW Anderson

“Anderson had almost everything covered, from upgraded utilitywear to shirred taffeta dresses. Canvas handkerchief-hem skirts had a touch of Girl Scout–camping about them for girls; for boys, it was a case of softened-up army and navy militaria. Anderson is very good at isolating items and showing how they can be worn together in an offhand way. Grounded by his latest collaboration with Converse and an array of chunky leather ankle boots, it all looked as if the models could walk off into the street, turn heads, but not be pointed at as freaks. Just enough fashion, but not too much. That felt it hit the mark of the times.” —S.M.

Simone Rocha

“Rocha’s following is a broad church—women of all ages and many sizes who, at a guess, love the access to the special kind of feminist femininity Rocha offers. This season, they had some entrancing things to look at in the shape of pale golden flowered brocades, ‘like a Constable landscape,’ explained the designer. There were ribbon ties flowing from voluminous sleeves, lace and net dresses trimmed with goat fur, a gazillion black Victoriana coats, and swathes of gold tinsel-fringed grid-patterned netting to layer on top of tailoring at will. The outstanding moments were the surprise of slick laminated tweed coats in what Rocha called ‘sick-y’ red and the exquisitely beautiful collages of white lace and brocade at the finale.” — S.M.

Erdem

“‘Adele Astaire was Fred’s elder sister and the much more talented one. She was completely independent and then married into this very formal aristocratic family,’ Erdem Moralioglu related. ‘It wasn’t [something that was done] then, but she even delayed her engagement so she could do one more show. She gave up her career and disappeared into Lismore Castle in Ireland. I became obsessed with this girl, and I kept coming back to the idea of her—such a showgirl—imagining her in her tweed and her glitzy star-spangled capes, traipsing the moors. Or, if she wore her flapper dresses with something belonging to her husband.’ Nothing sets Moralioglu’s creative wheels whirring faster than a historical romance, an effervescence of eccentricity, and a shadow of psychological distress. If the sparkly Adele hadn’t existed, he would almost have had to make her up. The imaginary wardrobe he made in her image was a delight, from sensible day to dreamy night.” —S.M.

Roksanda

“If elsewhere, protective dressing has been part of a dystopian urban vision—The End Is Nigh, But We’re Going to Look Really Cool When We Go!—then, in Ilincic’s hands, it was made to feel more wistful and gentle; she brought a little romantic yearning to the proceedings. . . . Of course, there are far more immediate and tangible issues that women are having to face right now; these days, the need to feel that one’s clothes can contribute to a sense of well-being and confidence shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s here that Ilincic’s outerwear scored: from the terrific opening look, an oversize camel coat gridded with scarlet bands on the back, to a burgundy blazer shrugged over graphic silk trousers to the color-blocked quilted parkas that had been denuded of utilitarian detailing; some of these looks were elegantly punctuated with downy scarves that were worn knotted at the neck.” —Mark Holgate

Christopher Kane

“In our hypersensitive time of #MeToo, who dares talk about sex in fashion? Christopher Kane broached it in his Fall collection—but, then again, his work has long had a frank undertow of interest in sexual drives. This time, despite the current charged atmosphere around who has permission to do what to whom, Kane said he and his sister, Tammy, considered it and felt they wanted to go ahead: ‘We thought, ‘No, what’s wrong with it?’ We wanted to look at it from the joy point of view—to empower and strengthen that female force.’ The Joy of Sex, the 1972 illustrated manual of positions and techniques by Alex Comfort, which became a publishing blockbuster in the age of sexual liberation (and which remains ever-popular in its more recent updates), was the starting point. Kane’s joys of fashion can certainly go there with a skimpy red lace body dress and the pulse-raising set of laminated, plasticized, marabou-edged suggestions he made at the, ah, climax of the show. But with his experience and design development prowess, there is always a broad and chic spectrum on his runway, too.” —S.M.

Matty Bovan

“How amazing to think that this tatty grandeur—wonky crinolines, balloon headdresses, and all—should have come out of a suburban garage in York. That’s where Matty Bovan, a star alum of Central Saint Martins, lives, in the north of England, with his parents Plum and Nick, who long ago surrendered the family outhouse to their son and his prolific need to create things. While it might not look exactly slick to new eyes, this was a relatively pared-down, grown-up collection for Bovan, as he started off thinking about Northern English standards of smart-lady dressing. He took British tweeds and treated them to his version of tailoring, with cutaway jackets and jodhpurs for striding moors and taking tea. He’s against mass production and pro doing things in a small way, but as time goes on, those are values fashion is coming round to appreciate.” —S.M.

Richard Malone

“Look at the colorful, cheerfully chic energy of Richard Malone’s collection and know there’s a change coming: a new generation that does its ethics by showing exciting fashion—almost forgetting to speak about the good practices by which it abides. For circle-cut jackets, sweeping coats, swishy knit dresses, and flares by the young Irish designer from Wexford, step this way! Malone’s ability to mix checks and stripes while owning a vivid palette is becoming an identifiable signature, with a touch, as he put it, ‘of the willfully unrefined.’ ” —S.M.

Marques’Almeida

“While everyone else on London’s big-show Monday was taking people to national galleries, palaces, and embassies, Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida had their audience dodge puddles along a graffiti-strewn tunnel to a cavernous concrete hellhole beneath the old Eurostar terminal. Keeping it real, and staying close to the opinions of their extensive girlfriend group, is the Marques’Almeida m.o. What Marques’Almeida offers is spot-on taste-wise, in sync with the big themes du jour, creatively crowdsourced from young women, and accessibly priced. Lots to like.” —S.M.

Richard Quinn

“Few people on the planet can claim to have had an audience with the Queen. Count Richard Quinn, the first recipient of Her Majesty’s British Design award, in that lucky group. Building on the momentum of his debut show at Liberty London last season, Quinn kicked his wild world of English floral prints into overdrive. The collection was off to a flying start, with a series of knife-pleat looks that were spliced with asymmetrical attitude. The best in the bunch were paired with cloud-like floral puffer coats and jackets, a cool complement to Quinn’s fluttering silhouette. Up until now, Quinn has expressed his affection for chintzy wallpaper prints with traditional fabrics—silk or velvet, for example. Here, he took that aesthetic to the moon, so to speak, with a series of foil evening gowns that were reminiscent of space blankets. They seemed to float down the runway with zero gravity.” —Chioma Nnadi