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London Fashion Week

18th-22nd September was London Fashion Week 2006, where the world's leading designers showcased their Spring/Summer 2006 collections at the Natural History Museum.

hcstuff's fashion guru Trischi Ward checked out the best shows...

Victim

More than 40 designers are holding “off-schedule” fashion shows at a series of alternative venues across London. Among these was Taiwan-born Mei Hui Liu who presented her Victim spring/summer 2006 in the mirrored-walled underground of SoHo's Moonlighting club.

For her latest collection Mei Hui Liu explores the dying craft of tea staining, a natural and organic way to add subtle tones to her unique one-off dresses. As early as the Tang dynasty, grean tea was used in costumes in China and brown tea in textiles for the home in the victorian era.

Young, sleek blonde models glided ghost-like through the club in romantic white, pale pink and peach and black Victorian lacy, silky dresses, their faces, legs and arms intricately decorated in pale pastel henna-like Mehndi designs. Check out her designs in Top Shop.

A roar of applause for Manish Arora!

A fashion show is a truly an Awesome (with capital A) experience! Oops, I must confess in the past I had nervously gate crashed shows in Milano (Romeo Gigli, Trussardi and Callaghan!) and spent most of the start of the shows terrified that I would be humiliated/mortified by being asked for my invite. So, to watch a fashion show as an invited guest and, to watch it during London Fashion Week, was a tremendous dream come true! With more dash than cash I truly felt flash!

In the early evening of the opening day of spring/summer 2006 London Fashion Week, the strikingly lit British Museum building loomed above and, juxtaposed against the famous BFC Tent, in the West Lawn. Hey, where’s my majestic Rudyard Kipling white tarpaulin tent and outdoor candles, flickering in the gentle breeze? Romantic reality check…”The Tent” is in fact a temp, prefab grey building!

Compliments to the UK fashionistas. Unlike Milano, there’s no un-gamely huge rugby scrum to get in, but a thoroughly British orderly queue! Hurrah for queues! “The Tent’s” foyer provides a refreshment bar. Alas no absolutely fabulous Patsy’s and Edina’s were hanging onto the bar. Though, what a life of sipping baby Moets through a straw, and shouting “Darrrrrrrrling, you must meet Lah Lah von Lah. He can do wonders for your career”… or “This years New York’s first-rows were soooooo paparazzi bling, darrrrrrrrrrrrrrling!”. It was buzzing!

Groovesville city. Entering the catwalk arena, your heart begins to race with excitement. I’m truly ecstatic, as I have been kindly invited by Blow to attend India’s top designer Manish Arora’s debut spring/summer 2006 collection. Manish Arora graduated from the faculty of Fashion Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) India, in 1994 and launched a line of women's wear in February 2001 under the label 'Fish Fry'. He owns Manish Arora Fish Fry fashion stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalor (India) and is being sponsored as part of the groovy Top Shop’s “New Generation” for this year’s London Fashion Week.

Thank you Luke, the ab fab PR guy, as he sweetly lets me stand at the coolest position ever… a jaw-dropping four meters from the catwalk’s end, by the front row! It’s a mega fantastic position in-front of the hugest ever photographer’s zooms. Also it’s a fab vantage point to survey the room of the eclectic audience – fashion-magazine style gods, first row stars, style magazine writers, boutique buyers, fashionistas, design students and some very, very cute eye candy. Its v cool to see there’s a multicultural mix and elegant lady’s glide by in brightly coloured, delicately sequined saris.

There’s an announcement… the lights dim… and… bombasticville city… the coolest, catwalk chaos remix music pumps out! An asain-esque dusky, sun-red glow emits from the catwalk entrance and a silhouette of a model appears. Wow! My heart is truly pumping… there’s an eruption of neon colours and patterns as the models funkily strut by, to the grooviest remix cover tunes ever (I so, want that soundtrack). From Hindu Kush to Kerala, to east meets west! Fireworks of bright colours… funky bell-shaped Rajasthani short skirts, long dresses, vest tops, … and… psychedelic socks and trainers! Bright, shiny sequin facemasks and dazzlingly swirling lines of face paint adorn the models faces. Manish Arora rocks!

I lift up my digi camera and start clicking… nightmare city… it takes ageous for the camera to focus and then take the pic… by which time the models have walked-by and I am left with a pic of the audience! Mega frustrationville city! Normally I’m a slick camera click chick. This is truly disasterville city! I give up on the pics, as the show is far too breathtaking to miss! With red cloth feathered wings, a model poses as a bird with a body-sock of portrait prints of 50’s movie queens for the grand finale! Then the models customarily walk by and Mannish Arora, the hero of the show briefly and modestly appears and disappears. The crowd cheer as an Indian-beat remix of “Give peace a chance” echoes through the arena! It surely can’t be over… Months of rigorous design and show preparation is catapulted into a 15-minute brilliant showcase. It seems to be over in lightening speed. I want more! Bravo, it was a sparkling debut show and Manish Arora truly deserved the ovation of approval! Milano shows are elegant… London shows are cutting-edge funky!

Hall OHara

Rock glamour meets geek chic and androgyny is the key, with waistcoats slashed to the waist over bare torsos, twinned with pinstripe trousers and braces, the colours in an edgy combination of black, white and gray.

Then a sudden change in mood, all salmon-pink blazers and floaty white dresses, perfect for a day sipping Pimms on the river.

All in all a very exciting, striking collection!

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