The inaugural London Fashion Week was held in a West London car park in 1984. Since then, it has come a long way and grown from just 15 catwalk shows to 72 now.
The popular British event also brings £269m income to London every year, while approximately 105,000 visitors come to the capital thanks to the fashion week.
Besides its financial impact, London Fashion Week is also credited for launching the careers of many great designers. Some of the most notable names are John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, and Stella McCartney.
1. Alexander McQueen’s Bumsters
Alexander McQueen was a visionary designer who enthralled audiences with the audacity and brilliance of his work. He was the recipient of 4 British Designer of the Year awards.
His shock tactics often generated a lot of controversies but they would serve to deliver some powerful messages to the audience.
In Highland Rape, he shocked the spectators by showing models in overtly sexual clothing. These models were posing in a distraught way and running down the catwalk in torn dresses. The most appalling for the audience was the bumsters – trousers slung so low that they even revealed the hip bones of the models.
The highly influential English designer was accused of misogyny for portraying women in this way. However, he defended himself by saying that he was making a political reference to England’s violation of Scotland in his show.
McQueen also made headlines in September 1998 when he showed the destruction of expensive clothing in front of a live audience. In the powerful visual, Shalom Harlow’s beautiful white dress was spray-painted by robots. It was said to be a commentary on the rising power of technology.
2. Vivienne Westwood’s boldness
Vivienne Westwood is regarded as one of the most unconventional and outspoken fashion designers in the world. Starting out from humble beginnings, she went on to make a big name for herself in the fashion world.
The famous fashion designer has also been very bold when it comes to expressing her views on important world issues. She has been using the runway as a platform for speaking about the Climate emergency, Guantanamo Bay, and anti-fracking demonstrations, etc.
3. Chalayan’s thought-provoking work
Hussein Chalayan is also a big name in the fashion world who twice won the British Designer of the Year award as well as the MBE in 2006. The Turkish Cypriot designer has been receiving praise from critics for his experimental and thought-provoking shows.
One of the best examples of his brilliant work was the show that depicted models entering the stage and putting on the chair covers as dresses. The most unforgettable moment in that show was the moment when a model gingerly stepped into the coffee table and lifted it to create a skirt. This moment was enough to blow anyone’s mind, and its effect would probably have been the same on a normal being as well as a soccer fanatic obsessed with debates like who the most famous football player of all time is.