London Fashion Week Recap
Design by Rachel Liu
Welcome back to another year of the wet and windy winter that is London. Our whirlwind weather was only matched this winter by the mood on the runway at London Fashion Week. LFW took place between Friday 18th to Tuesday 22nd February 2022, and this year, with COVID precautions still very much in place, LFW was a hybrid event with a schedule of both immersive digital and sensual, physical experiences.
In-person catwalk shows, shoots, presentations, appointments, and events were met with a bold display of vibrant digital content. LFW certainly gave us a happy medium of fashion and technology! In the words of Sarah Mower, the exhibition of “diversity, inclusion, community purpose, and creative solutions” was at the forefront of LFW this year. Alongside the high-art, editorial statements that are always showcased, the City-Wide programme at LFW brought together over 200 brands and 400 events, all displaying London’s culture as experimental, imaginative, and accessible to all. With so many designers to pick from, who were the standouts this year at LFW? Whose iconic looks will we see strut off the runway and onto our streets?
Azura Lovisa AW22
Azura Lovisa takes her fashion to a whole new plane, a whole new realm. Lovisa’s collections are constructed as Chapters, with the pieces themselves oriented around storytelling, the mythical, around the craft of escapism. In wearing these clothes, clothes that Lovisa has constructed as genderless through their neutral tones and loose structures, people’s bodies can be liberated and understood. As LFW describes, Lovisa’s collections “build a distinctive visual universe that accumulates density with time, returning to signature elements and themes” that are the core of humanity’s very being. And those garments reflect Lovisa’s literary love by mirroring the very construct of narrative. Each fabric is chosen with intention. Made with handwoven, natural fabrics each garment’s stitch is purposeful, we see the labour and the labourer behind it. Lovisa’s fashion isn’t just pulled from a fairytale. They are political, committed to the slow-fashion movement, not only through their construction with organic materials but through the sustainable craft production and ethical practices that go into making them. Drawing too on her hybrid identity as a Malaysian-Swedish woman, Lovisa creates a wardrobe for the “Other” to be coveted. She never forgets her roots with her Scandinavian minimalism and Southeast Asian aestheticism, and she never forgets her human roots by creating a “holistic harmony with the earth”.
Jamie Wei Huang
I Have A Broken Piece Of Me . Jamie Wei Huang keeps it personal, expressive, and self-aware with her collection I Have A Broken Piece Of Me. Huang believes that to express one’s identity, expressing connectivity between the self and the garment is crucial. Huang does this through her ingenious use of materials. To express that individuality, Hunag uses specific, single fabrics for each garment, allowing for a holistic appreciation of fashion in its entirety, and in this, Huang brings the transparency of craftsmanship and the dressmaking process to the forefront of her designs. Traditional silhouettes are deconstructed, to bear all, acting as a blank canvas of self-expression that Huang strives for. But there is always an element of the demographic that Huang designs for - she designs with her audience in mind. After graduating from Central Saint Martins College with a background in Fine Art, Huang took that ideology of imagination, aesthetic art, and art for art’s sake to the modern street, by presenting her fashion as a story of the luxury, casual sport.
IA LONDON
IA London presented to us this collection, Beautifully Broken on the runway this year and it certainly lived up to its name as a line that broke down the barriers of time and age. The Avant-Garde womenswear brand took new and experimental both back in time with its exaggerated, Enlightenment aesthetics, and forward in time with its postmodernist, three-dimensional silhouettes and otherworldly imagery. After all, it’s a brand that “seeks to provide a sense of timelessness, authenticity, and quality in the age of fast consumerism”. Not only is it IA London’s mission to create a renaissance in fashion (in every sense of the word), there is an inherency to present a Britishness in their designs. They use only British digital textile printing and manufacture in the UK, both the artistry and the labour is quintessentially British. With its unique marketing and local production methods, IA London has created a luxury brand with both patriotic innovation and environmentally friendly at its core.
Xander Zhou
Xander Zhou has made his mark in the fashion industry by reworking his Asian roots. Zhou seamlessly entwines the folkloric, oriental mysticism of Asia’s heritage with its fast-thinking, futuristic modern culture. Through his vivid aesthetic of "techno-orientalism", Zhou has pioneered his own fashion future - his own fashion universe. By exhibiting an uber-futuristic collection, Zhou creates “a virtual dimension in which the characters from his collections coexist and interconnect - whether they are humans, androids or aliens”. Zhou challenges the boundaries of diversity, gender, sexuality, and identity itself, but he also challenges the boundaries of galaxies, with each of his past collections all focusing on “the simultaneous presence of multiple selves, parallel worlds and, ultimately, the meaning of existence.”
DUMEBI
"Fashion for me has always been a way to express myself without saying a word. I believe that there is a Goddess in all of us and we were all created to shine”. As CEO Barbara Biosah says, fashion is all about self-expression, and art whereby the outside mirrors the inside because our truest selves were all destined to be seen. We see this in Barbara’s vibrant collection Anaemia. Through striking scarlets and candy cane pinks, Biosah’s flamboyant and opulent personality shines through her collection, but her mixed heritage as a woman born and raised in London with Nigerian roots defines her clothing. Biosah’s pieces evoke that handmade exotic couture that she specialises in, but her interest in blending cultures, identities, and even time is symbolised here in Anaemia too. Her collection mixes tribal, African traditions with European Renaissance, and blends British postmodernism with effortless, Parisian chicness. And her pieces too are reflective of both editorial glamour and the natural. Her goal is to eliminate fast-fashion consumerism by using only the finest natural materials and enticing clients to embrace the luxury of fashion both artistic and wearable.
View our top LFW collections below.
Azura Lovisa
Chapter VI
Be at one with nature in Lovisa’s colours and silhouettes.
Cristiana Alagna
Individuals SS22
Individuals is all about equality - men and women are free to be themselves on an equal playing field. “Ten looks for ten models, each one with a different story to tell”. Don’t be afraid to be your own person in Alagna’s garments.
Jamie Wei Huang
I Have A Broken Piece Of Me
Show the building blocks of your personality through the minimalist, architectural style of Huang.
Fanfare Label
The Extension Of Life
High-fashion without the fuss and frills. Fanfare Label offers customers timeless, seasonless pieces made to be adored with each item “transcend[ing] micro-trends and seasonal styling, [making] individual pieces staples for years to come”.
IA LONDON
Beautifully Broken
Turning heads with garments like no other - the renaissance of British fashion is nigh with IA LONDON.
WESTERNAFFAIR
WESTERNAFFAIR shoes delineate sustainable luxury. They “cherish” materials that are available instead of indulging in fast fashion practices. “WESTERNAFFAIR unveils pearls and cultivates preciosity”, refining luxury fashion with uniqueness and ethical values at its core.
Xander Zhou
Taking fashion’s future to the edges of the map, the edges of space, the universe.
EFTYCHIA
Life Before Birth
EFTYCHIA removes the unnecessary boundaries of gender by constructing pieces that reflect “a new and refreshingly unadorned femininity”.
DUMEBI
Daydream Handbags
DUMEBI has given us the stunning collection Anaemia but these bags are certainly worth a mention themselves. Whimsical and playful, you’ll be daydreaming about owning one of these!
Feng Chan Wang
An Ode To Community II
Feng describes her aesthetic as “future-modern, emotional and multidimensional”, she focuses on unisex clothing that is both functional and individualistic. The “personal” ios is integral to Feng as her deconstructed style is drawn from her own Chinese heritage.
Edited by Kieryn Alexander