From the golden age of glamour to wartime utility: London Fashion Week provided a smorgasbord of style inspiration for the coming seasons.
British and Irish designers re-imagined florals, androgynous silhouettes and showcased contemporary takes on traditional femininity.
From tutu clutch bags to floral bell-bottoms: here are five London Fashion Week trends we might all be wearing next spring.
1. Large florals are in, ditsy is out
Designers re-imagined bountiful blooms this season with Seventies floral flares, flower-adorned suits and rounded rose hems.
Portuguese design duo, Marques’Almeida, showcased the trend through brocade bell-bottoms and embellished denim at their spring/summer collection.
British designers Erdem and Richard Quinn featured floral suits and melodramatic roses on their eveningwear pieces, suggesting large florals will take over from the ditsy prints of last spring.
2. Tutus and balletcore with a twist
A trend that took TikTok by storm last year, designers Simone Rocha, Bora Aksu and Chopova Lowena proved balletcore is not going anywhere next spring. Although this time, it takes on a grungy twist.
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Chopova Lowena layered tutus, Victoriana blouses and peplumed petticoats, creating a punky take on classically hyper-feminine garments.
Irish designer Rocha’s spring/summer runway was awash with tutu skirts, silk slippers and rolled-up organza clutches – a style that’s undoubtedly in the running to become next season’s ‘it’ bag.
3. Fifties ‘tradwife’ glamour
Irish designer Paul Costelloe and London-based designer Richard Quinn showcased some golden-age glamour with wasp-waists and Chanel-inspired slip silhouettes.
Taking inspiration from Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’, Quinn incorporated the ultra-feminine silhouette in a range of his evening gowns, suggesting TikTok’s ‘tradwife’ aesthetic has made its way onto the runway.
Costelloe instead took inspiration from the latter half of the decade, channelling Jackie Kennedy with trapeze shapes and A-line silhouettes that skimmed the body.
Both Costelloe and Quinn’s spring/summer collections were harking back to the post-war period of hyper-femininity. With Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn as style icons, it seems post-pandemic may be channelling the same standard of glamour next spring.
4. Nearly-naked sheer
It seems the Fifties wasn’t the only decade designers took inspiration from this season.
Nineties’ sartorial silhouettes constructed from sheer fabric and lace dominated the spring/summer runways. "[In the Nineties] I kind of loved that people had a bit more playful fun with their bodies," the British-American designer Harris Reed told PA Media.
"The transparency, the sheer – this idea of the ‘nearly naked’ – it was a time where people used fashion more as a mere accessory to be themselves and less about ‘I’m just getting dressed for the office’."
Nensi Dojaka, 16Arlington and rising British designer S.S. Daley drew upon the idea of letting your body do the talking, as their spring/summer collections hinged upon androgynous silhouettes, airy sheers and delicate layering.
5. Practical utility
It wasn’t all frills and glamour – Burberry showcased some Brutalist utility design at their spring/summer show. The label’s creative director, Daniel Lee, turned away from whimsy in favour of pragmatic patterns, sombre pastels and sharp silhouettes.
Derry-born designer JW Anderson also channelled this wartime-esque colour palette, with khaki colour blocking and retrained silhouettes.
The Irish designer’s spring/summer collections suggest the hardship is not over amidst the perils of a post-pandemic world. Washed denim blues, pale khakis and shaded stones are on track to become next spring’s staple colour palette.
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