London Fashion Week SS16 – Show Highlights
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London Fashion Week is becoming more and more inclusive, at least that was my takeaway at the end of the 5 days of shows and exhibitions. The capitals’ edginess, eccentricity and tough-in-cheek sense of style will never change but accessibility is expanding to include those on fashions’ fringes, edging in. I rarely get to attend the AW shows as these take place in February (Oscars season) and Red Carpet Green Dress takes me away from that but the plus side is that I get to miss all the madness for a while and then return.

The brands exhibiting and showcasing on the runway certainly drew impressive crowds – Anna Wintour, MIA, Paloma Faith, Irina Shayk, Miroslava Duma, Jerry Hall, Victoria Beckham, David Beckham, Georgia May Jagger, Naomi Campbell – and the collections did not fail to deliver. From the marbleised printed chiffon at DAKS to purposeful meticulous trim at Erdem each designer gave buyers, press and fashion-lovers alike something to get excited about once again.

Image credit: Kris Mitchell Photography unless otherwise stated

The majority of the shows I watched balanced commercial viability and creative ingenuity carefully – let’s hope this reflects in sales as times are certainly challenging. The stand out trend for me though was just how responsive the exhibiting brands were online, in real time and the level of engagement (Burberry, Sophia Webster and Atelier Swarovski proved most successful when it came to engagement). Topshop along captured a staggering 1.4 million total engagements across Twitter, Facebook and LFW’s star platform Instagram, where 96% of engagement took place overall. Londoners may well also be smug as it was revealed that despite having a shorter run than NYFW, LFW generated 1 million more tweets. Speaking of the Big Apple, over there Victoria Beckham did us all proud by becoming the most highly interacted with brand on social media topping industry heavy weights Marc Jacobs and Diane Von Furstenberg.  Anyone watching shows and the happenings from outside the grounds were well catered to by the periscope feeds, streams through brands’ websites and other sources including the BFC’s official London Fashion Week site.

When it came to shows this time around Burberry and Anya Hindmarch proved the most stimulating/innovative for me;  the former revealed the first look at the collection through an app in “the first ever” Snapchat fashion show. This coupled with a live orchestra and the companies’ earlier announcement of a Music Channel (within Apple new “Curators” section for established and up-and-coming British artists) meant Burberry certainly stimulated the senses. British designer Anya Hindmarch brought performance art front and centre with a fantastic neon-light meets mirror triangle prism.

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