Tuesday, February 24, 2009

LFW AW09: Tuesday

Fashion flu struck me down with full force when I woke up this morning. I just about managed to get into the office but spent most of the day battling to focus on my computer screen. As such, I haven't edited yesterday's post so as you read it, please pretend it's still Tuesday. I hope that makes sense. There's no post about today as I only had a tickets for Carolyn Massey and the flu made it seem so far that I didn't go.

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Depending on how you look at it, today is the last day of London Fashion Week AW09. There's still the menswear showcases tomorrow but as of today, Womenswear is officially done. I am partly sighing with relief but also a little sad. After weeks of organising, stress and then the actual traipsing and exhaustion of the event itself, it seems to disappear in the blink of an eye with nothing but a few blisters and the odd goodie bag to show for it. Now, it's roll on, September.

But let's not get too melancholy, there's still today to talk about. I had to finish off doing the tents, so there's was little time for shows but I still managed to cover a few. The day started at Osman Yousefada at the Science Museum. I really liked the collection, in it's regal futuristic lady kind of way. Boiled wools, big jewel embellished necklines and clean, sculptural lines galore. Judge for yourselves:







Afterwards, I stayed at the same venue for Ashley Isham, whose front row was certainly interesting: Tess Daly, someone from GMTV, Jade Parfitt, Erin O'Connor and Michelle Collins, who has certainly pulled it together since the last Ashley Isham show:



I have to say that from the collection, the first three quarters of his collection didn't really rock my socks but the final quarter with his formal dresses had some really great pieces. Compare and constrast:






and the final portion:






Share your thoughts in the comments section. Next, we headed over to Vauxhall Fashion Scout for Avsh Alum Gur. The collection featured ball dresses with huge exaggerated netted skirts with quirky prints to cat suits embellished with 'credit crunch' in diamante, as well as more wearable pieces such as the fluted strapless dress and purple cardigan coat.







From here, we headed back to the tents to finish off doing the rounds at the exhibition and to grab a free Topshop lunch box, which was awesome. Mine contained a smoked salmon and picked cucumber sandwich, mini caeser salad, banana, two amazing choc-chip cookies and a passion fruite and pineapple juice. Yum.

After we finished, we headed up to Bora Aksu and like a lot of others, ended up missing it because the venue was overstuffed, which was a real shame. So, we killed some time and then headed to Emma Bell, over at Vauxhall Fashion Scout. Approaching the venue, I gulped at the site of the long line of Hoxton Trendies snaking down the pavement. If there's one thing that this Fashion Week has taught me is that if you look like you know where you're going, you'll get there. Posse in tow, I marched to the front of the queue where a man dressed head to toe in sequins was having a hissy fit at not being included on the guest list as his friend's plus one and therefore not being let in.

Summoning all of my courage, I side-stepped sequin man and mustered an 'Excuse me, are you letting in press?'. The doorman immediately snapped to attention.
'Of course, of course. How many of you?'
I pointed at the crowd on the pavement and before I knew it, we were in and skipping out on the fancy-dress explosion of a crowd grumbling outside. We had to wait for about half an hour in a rammed, hot and angry crowd before the show was ready to run and people could finally enter the room where the show was being staged. Once more, armed with a good ticket and with three people clinging on in a chain, I marched up, waved my ticket in the air and there was someone grabbing my wrist and leading me on.Suddenly, we were front row for the show. Awesome.

The show started with a performance of 'how much is that doggy?' by Scottee, a performance artist, who was dressed in a full on dog costume and lime green glittery heels. A violinist in face paint accompanied him while a montage of silly photos of dogs was projected onto the walls.



Finally some clothes appeared and it was a completely crazy collection but clearly popular with the I'm-so-weirdly-dressed-I-must-be-cool crowd, judging by their whooping. There was no celebrity front row but they did have Sam and Amanda (the annoying twins from Big Brother) and Jodie Harsh walking the catwalk. Finally, I'm shut up and post some photos:







I was meant to head out to both the FAD awards and then the Osman afterparty but fashion flu was setting in and for a moment, I hesitated in the tube station. East to Green Park and the party or West to home and lying down? The pull to my bed was far greater than that of free booze and so off I trotted, another Fashion Week over.

Coming soon: video of all of the final walks.

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