Noted by Colin McDowell

Was Longfellow right when he wrote, “Youth is lovely, age is lonely”? Not when it comes to London fashion. For designers here, it is more a case of age cannot wither them. Sprinkled around the young Turks so fêted in this city, we have Paul Smith, Caroline Charles, Margaret Howell, Jasper Conran, Nicole Farhi, Vivienne Westwood and Betty Jackson. All have been commercially successful for impressive lengths of time. Their total age? Well over 400 years.

So it’s important to remember that London’s 25 years of survival rests on designers who aren’t just here today, but whose businesses thrive. In this celebratory season, we should look back and praise those whose design and business skills have enabled London to survive this far. While also hoping that some, at least, of the current crop might do the same for the next 25 years.

If you read Robert O’Byrne’s Style City (the only book that traces London’s fashion history), you will learn the full story of a remarkable tale of survival since the 1970s and, like me, hope that the current designer darlings might do as well as the old.

colinmcdowell@mac.com

Column McDowell

ISSUE NO 3, LONDON FASHION WEEK SPRING/SUMMER 2010

Full of grace

L O N D O N F A S H I O N W E E K

I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H PA N D O R A

REPORTING FROM FASHION’S FRONT LINE

Got a story? Email us:newsdesk@lfwdaily.com

VIEW THE DAILY ONLINE:www.lfwdaily.com

MONDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2009

Report by David Hayes

Report by David Hayes

THE FASHION MOMENT Divine: Antonio Berardi and models backstage at his St Mark’s Church show yesterday. Photography by Anna Bauer

Report by Caryn Franklin

A desire to include voluptuous women in a hotly awaited runway show on the part of an innovative and highly thought-of designer name, and the concerns of a respected stylist in making sure the show was executed to her standards,  have been blown out of all proportion in the past 24 hours.

The issue of unfettered female flesh is one that sends the media into meltdown. It is much bigger than one designer show, one stylist

Lost in translation

FROM TOKYO TO LONDON OXFORD STREET / SHOP ONLINE: UNIQLO.COM

His homecoming catwalk outing in Mayfair’s St Mark’s Church last night showed him at his very best. Sexy, sheer-but-structured dresses under drapey silk kimono jackets, architectural seamed shifts, razor- sharp tailoring, black lace worked into delicate pleats, lashings of sparkly crystals, handkerchief-point layers and hot colour all added up to his own modern take on couture.

“The devil is in the detail with Antonio,” explained Creative Director

Ten years is a long time, but in fashion? It’s an eternity. So you couldn’t blame designer Antonio Berardi for feeling a little nervous about showing back in London after a decade away on the catwalks of Milan and Paris. “I’ve been terrified,” joked Berardi backstage. “But everyone here has been so supportive. It has been amazing.”

Beer money (from sponsor Peroni) and the BFC brought Berardi back and he needn’t have worried one bit.

Isn’t it lovely starting with a clean sheet of spotless paper? The promise of all the things you could create. Of course, you go on to make a right old hash of it and have to chuck it straight in the bin, but that moment before you put pen to paper is definitely something special to savour.

Many designers are having that clean-sheet moment this season. Pure white was an emerging trend in New York (Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Donna Karan, to name but a few) and is becoming the look linking a diverse bunch of London designers. 

and close friend Sophia Neophitou, who has been back working with the designer for the past six seasons. “The collection was inspired by a trip to Venice; the deep blues and oranges, the lace. The slightly abandoned feel of the church suited it perfectly.”

“We didn’t do anything different for London,” said Berardi. “We just do what we do.”

And you really have to admit, whatever he and his team do, they do it rather beautifully.

We were all white, after all

and a few larger models. I have been writing about the subject of models and size for 16 years and I still find it hard to stay cool, too.

So let us examine the facts… In recognising the opportunity

that his position gives him to communicate positive messages to women about their bodies, a young designer decides that curvy women can look great in his clothes and adds three ‘plus size’ models to his line-up. It is well received.

The pictures from this show get a lot of media space, and women in Civvy Street – consumers, not just of the end product, but also of the emotional messaging around femininity and size – celebrate. End of story? No.

Now tabloids are turning it into a heated public debate. Misinformation is fuelling a sizeism frenzy, when what we need is not a knee-jerk reaction but simple clarity.

So here it is. As an industry we have to appreciate that models who offer a more realistic representation of women to women provoke media-column inches precisely because they are a rarity and consumers are desperate to see them. When they become a regular feature in our magazines, in our advertising campaigns and on our catwalks, there’ll be nothing left to say. End of story.

Caryn Franklin is Co-founder of All Walks Beyond the Catwalk

Osman went the whole way with a totally white collection lifted with blocks of gold. Hannah Marshall broke up her tough black-leather-and-coat-hanger-shoulders signature style with a few well- placed lighter, white moments, and the comeback collection from Marcus Constable at Liberty mixed in a fair share of white within his 18 looks of stripes and tailoring, inspired by Art Nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. “Because there was a lot of tailoring, which could

have looked old, I stuck to a neutral palette to keep it feeling fresh and young,” Constable said post-show.

Jasper Conran’s collection had a strong, pure white theme running through it, too.  “We did a lot of black last season and it just seemed a natural progression of that,” says Conran. “You can never really put your finger on why everyone picks up on the same things. It is just something in the air. Just fashion, I guess.”

Photography by Catwalking.com

2 NEWS

LAVENDER ESSENTIAL OIL The Daily office pick-me-up

CRYSTAL-SPRINKLED LEGGINGS A Louise Goldin delight

NEO-CLASSICAL VIEWS The ultimate visual tonic

BETTY JACKSON Joyful prints, feel-good vibe

BAROMETER FRONT-ROW HOGGERS TAKING UP

TWO SEATS Budge up, greedy!

SWEATING BUCKETS AT THE SHOWS

RIDICULOUSLY OVERSIZED HATS ON THE FRONT ROW

COLD SORES This season’s tingling-hot

accessory – not!

LONDON FASHION WEEK’S THE DAILY Monday 21 September 2009

LFW’S THE DAILY CREDITS

Created and edited by JENNY DYSON & CAT CALLENDER

Managing Editor JANA DOWLING

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& ANTONIA WHYATTGuest Reporters

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& TYRONE LEBON Advertising &

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“They’re just a dog’s dinner of frills and fluff,” jokes show stylist Lucy Ewing. No, we’re not talking about some front-row attention seeker,  but the beautiful handmade rings [see right] that had everyone in a lather at Betty Jackson. These accessories, made of tulle, velvet, beads and just about anything else they could get their hands on, added the perfect final flourish to Betty’s uplifting summer collection. 

The whole thing became a family affair, too. “Everyone has helped make them in the past two days,

but it was chiefly down to Betty’s daughter and god-daughter,” explains Ewing. As the models all clamoured over the accessories box to self-style their fingers prior to the show, their popularity made one thing clear: the pieces will be going into production for the Spring/Summer 2010 collection. Whether Jackson’s poor family will be roped into long nights of handicraft to make this happen or not is still unclear. Glue guns at the ready…

Photography by Tyrone Lebon

BAROM

ETER

BAROM

ETER

Decorative digitsReport by Stevie Brown

The art of cross dressing What a load of b**logsTo bare or not to bare, that is the question. Humidity has split fashion’s front-line wardrobes down the middle. While some are making the most of summer’s last gasp with sandals, sundresses and skin, others are showing-off their new Autumn/Winter wear and looking a little warm. 

“I understand people wanting to parade their new looks, but sweating is not glamorous,” says Matches’ bare-legged Bridget Cosgrave.

Our hearts go out to those trussed up in black leather and thigh-high

Report by Stevie Brown

Exclusive, limited edition scarves and ties created by Hermès using Liberty’s iconic Tana Lawn fabricAvailable now online and at Liberty, Regent Street

www.liberty.co.uk

Hermès pops up at Liberty

final lfw as the daily.indd 1 02/09/2009 15:19

boots, a key look for this season, apparently. Deciding what to wear in an industry that operates in the future is never easy, without the British climate throwing a spanner in the works by being unseasonably hot. 

But Brix Smith-Start, dressed in her summer finery of a Hannah Marshall chiffon dress and strappy sandals, has the answer: “I have my Alex Wang shearling gilet with me to transform my outfit to Autumn/Winter if needed.” A transeasonal hero is born. All hail the gilet!

LIVE CATWALK ILLUSTRATION AT ELEY KISHIMOTO Drawn by Sophie Alda

Arrrrrrghhhhhhh! Child bloggers everywhere! You’re probably already sick of hearing about Tavi, the strangely charming 13-year-old American blogger who has managed to turn herself into an internet celebrity in recent months with her unnervingly knowing references to fashion moments, cultural events and, most bizarrely of all, typeface trends that happened long before her time. If you haven’t read her blog you will at least have heard the endless speculation about her since she

Report by Isaac Lock

caused ripples by plonking herself on the front row at the New York shows last week. People haven’t stopped talking: is she a JT LeRoy-style hoax, masterminded by a major photographer/an adult with freakishly good skin and miniature features/made entirely of plasticine/preserved by Eerie, Indiana-style human Tupperware/a hologram/meant to be in school or something? The truth, boringly enough, is that she is just a scarily intelligent kid, who has a baffling degree of visual

literacy, thanks to having grown up with the internet as a resource. She is actually just the thin end of the wedge of kiddy-blogging.

Anyway, this week two precocious, feisty, international schoolkids (a boy called Lev with long ginger hair like a young Mick Hucknall, and a girl called Noa who talks to her friends on the phone like an Editor in Chief talks to their PA) have been turning heads at the shows by stomping around like mini-editors, shooting street-style pictures like mini Sartorialists, and getting their press passes confiscated by security for being underage. If you go onto their blog, brainsbeauty.wordpress.com, you can link to hundreds of other fashion blogs by youths, all equally outspoken and obsessive. Noa reckons she doesn’t even know who Tavi is because “there are a lot of kids doing fashion blogs out there – too many to really keep track of.”

However, even though they’re only just starting to get attention, the days of the mini-blogger are numbered. Once you get over the novelty, there’s actually nothing all that interesting in the innermost thoughts of a kid who’s discovering fashion for the first time. The qualified opinion of a life-long expert is more relevant.

People read the kids because they’re currently running the internet while the grown-ups are scrabbling around in a mad panic to keep up. However, as has become apparent this season in the way everyone and their assistant is frantically multitasking like mad to try to get on the online bandwagon, they’re getting there. The girls at Vogue are posting five blogs a day each, national newspaper writers are stomping around with digital SLRs for instant blog posts, and Grazia’s Paula Reed is covering the magazine, the daily blog and trying to film herself with a Flip video camera to post online films.

Her colleague Kay Barron, meanwhile, claims that “about eight of us are Twittering for Grazia all at once, all the time. It’s a frenzy, but everyone is suddenly taking the internet.” Even Colin McDowell has just launched colinmcdowell.com, exploiting the relative freedom of the internet to, he claims, “write down my nastiest thoughts, send them off and get them online.” If even the real grown-ups are finally getting on board, does this mean that the internet age everyone has been guffing on about for 10 years or so is finally upon us?

Here’s hoping. Internet 3.0 should be quality content by relevant commentators! So enjoy it while you can, amazing/terrifying mini- bloggers; the real world is on its way!

Match of the dayLFW and Matches have got together to create an on-site store with all sorts of one-off goodies to buy at Somerset House from the Matches 4 LFW booth.

To get in on the act, The Daily is running a Willy Wonkatastic Golden Ticket competition every day during LFW for your chance to win a limited-edition designer gift: today it’s a Hannah Marshall bag and T-shirt!

Go to www.matchesfashion.com and enter code LFWDAILY.

LONDON FASHION WEEK’S THE DAILY Monday 21 September 20094 BEAUTY

ALL THE FUN OF THE HAIR

Big head or small head? That’s the key question that hair stylists ask designers before they start prepping the hair for a show.

The decision hangs on the degree of detail around the neck and shoulders. “When the neckline is busy, designers prefer to keep the head small, so as not to detract from the design,” says L’Oréal Paris session stylist Alain Pichon. Despite this, for Eun Jeong’s show, Pichon sent the girls out with huge, frizzed manes. “We did a tiny head last season, so it had to go the other way,” he laughs.

The volumising spray was out at Emilio de la Morena, too, where the Bumble and Bumble session stylist, James Pecis, created ‘youthful volume’. Bumble’s Thickening Hairspray should be top of your list, along with Charles Worthington’s brilliant new Front Row Dry Shampoo, the pro choice for building body at the roots.

For Kinder Aggugini, Malcolm Edwards for L’Oréal Professionnel maxed out on volume, giving the girls ‘Coke can’ curls. “The whole collection was about exaggeration and playing with scale,” he said.

Bigging up barnets elsewhere,

Sam McKnight spent 30 minutes on each girl at Mulberry [see left], crimping and backcombing to create a fittingly fairground candyfloss ’do, while, at Westwood, Peter Grey was on a backcombing bonanza, too.

In contrast, hair minimalists included Osman with sleek ponytails, Veryta’s mussed-up topknots, and Louise Gray, whose neater knots were shot through with neon hair extensions.

It’s telling that the topknot has emerged as the most popular style among the fashion set this week. I counted 17 in the audience at Unique, which was officially a ‘bigger’ hair show. Despite the lure of the Toni & Guy on-site hair salon (brilliant blow-dries in 20 minutes) and LFW press invitations for Daniel Hersheson’s Blow Dry Bar on Conduit Street, the temptation to just twist it into a knot is more appealing after a night of partying with a 9am show the next day.

Perhaps the best solution is to have it both ways. For Graeme Black’s show, Sam McKnight created a small head with a big, backcombed bun. Now who says fashion isn’t accommodating?

BROUGHT TO YOU BY FRONT ROW,THE NEW BACKSTAGE STYLING RANGE

FROM CHARLES WORTHINGTON

Beauty spot

ADVERTORIAL

Report by Anna-Marie Solowij

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Tom StubbsStraight man in fashion

From where I’m stood, all trendy men dress the same; the whole look straight out of the Shoreditch handbook. Even the LBS (little black suit) is well overdone, and can make you look like a waiter.

A cleverly patterned suit works brilliantly for those who want to work a smart look and avoid being mistaken for a Hoxton ‘Bibble’, aka a fashion joker straight out of Chris Morris’s TV sitcom, Nathan Barley.The way forward is to nail a good suit, then push the boat out with your personal taste and nuances.

A dark check in a pert little suit format delivers up-to-date Brit chic, without appearing remotely stuffy. I’d drop it with a bespoke Emma Willis shirt, vintage Hermès tie and Berluti co-respondent brogues for full Mayfair massive impact. Alternatively, team with a white dress shirt buttoned right to the top for a Withnail meets André 3000 mood, (Withnail 3000?).

Don’t let the side down, and keep your LFW look London Metropolitan, not London Fields. Thank you, gentlemen.

Belt,£9.99

Shirt,£24.99

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NEWS 5

Designers talk of ‘conceiving’ their collection as if it’s a baby. Richard Nicoll became impregnated with his Spring/Summer 2010 looks in Barcelona. But don’t start thinking flamenco frills. No. “I felt so free in Barcelona. It was pure summer escapism. It made me think we all need frivolity in our lives,” he says. From that thought came the clothes, inspired by late 19th-century Tahitian photography and flooded with a sense of freedom from convention. So we got giant, tropical flower placements on short, corseted cocktail frocks in humid terracotta pink and cool misty blue. We also saw loose, silky tailoring to die for. Loved the wide-shouldered jacket and high-waisted pleat-front trouser suits in tobacco and putty – perfect for a jaunt in a steamy city. A navy silk shirt-dress with sleeves cut to expose a toned shoulder made me dream of cutting loose. His pale-blue denim shot through with silver thread was glamorous and covetable. Expect a waiting list for the smart, wearable snakeskin sandals he co-created with Jonathan Kelsey. Champion!

www.lfwdaily.com

Catwalk highlights

LOUISE GOLDIN RICHARD NICOLLTOPSHOP UNIQUEAttending a Louise Goldin show leaves one hunting for adjectives, not jotting down notes describing clothes and styling. Here is a knitwear designer creating clothes that are experimental, intricate, delicate, challenging and not at all like knitwear as we know it. For Spring/Summer 2010, the Louise Goldin woman, as she imagines her, is a softly sculpted collision of an intergalactic warrior woman and a Baroque Marie Antoinette. Oh, yes! She wears pastels – palest lemon, dusty lilac, powder blue – and mixes them with gold lamé, gold crystal and high heels encrusted with vicious little spikes. Her wardrobe is a similar clash of demure and sexy. So you get gold romper shorts with a draped top that flashes open to reveal a pointed padded crystal bra, making her look very pleased to see you. But mostly you get complex little dresses bristling with stiff pleats, bustles and peplums, overlaid with tulle, and lace crystal that looks like nothing else out there. The designer was inspired by “Baroque and mid-1990s Versace. I’ve been working on the bra shapes for a while.”

Farhi is a designer who knows what she is doing, who she is doing it for and why. Tens of thousands of women rely on Nicole to provide wardrobe solutions for them, but did she deliver the goods this time? Of course she did! In fact, this felt like a real clean sweep for the designer. To my eyes, her shapes, colours and fabrics looked more fresh, youthful and sophisticated than they have for a long time. When Chanel Iman strolled along the runway in loose, dusty-pink cotton cargo pants teamed with printed, tie-front blouse, she got a new customer. The look was laid-back elegance of the Katharine Hepburn school, with a crisp modernity in the way she cut a dropped shoulder on a blouse or knit, or a stand-up collar on a sleeveless jacket. What was most striking, though, was the palette of unusual shades of jade, navy, mustard and purple and here I’ll hand you over to Nicole. “I was inspired by the German Expressionist painter Emil Nolde for his use of colour. And for the shapes, it was sportswear.”

NICOLE FARHI

Report by MELANIE RICKEY, Fashion Editor at Large, GraziaPhotography by Catwalking.com

Fashion footnotes TODAY’S TOPIC: HOW TO STAGE A COMEBACK

Imagine you’re a fashion designer known for sexy, sparkly dresses, a celebrity front row, a deep tan and a party lifestyle. But you want to change. You want to become a fashion leader. You want your clothes to be relevant. In short, you want to be taken seriously. Is it possible? Is there any way to turn back the clock and get the industry behind you once again?

This is the situation Julien Macdonald finds himself in. “I got stuck,” he confessed backstage at his show last night, once the camera crews had moved on and the air kissing had died down. “Like all designers when you’re earning money, it just becomes too easy. I was following fashion. I knew what worked for my clients and I stuck to it.”

So not for him any more the ostrich gowns, bejewelled and sequined to within an inch of their lives? “I changed, I got older [he says he’s 37]. I’ve done the partying. And I wanted to do more with my life than just party dresses. It’s not just about what my clients want any more, it’s about what I want them to wear… But it’s not been easy.”

Take his collection last night, inspired, he said, by ‘underwater love’, brought on by a deep sea dive on his last holiday in Sharm el Sheikh. You can see how Macdonald is trying his utmost to move away from the banal spangly party frock and drill some real, serious fashion into his collection. Sporty scuba-influenced fabrics came laminated to the body, with the occasional chunky zip or fierce stud, and for evening – and perhaps he should have played this up more – a move towards romance with nude sequins and trailing, wispy skirts.

The first part of Macdonald’s

Pandora knew there would be much excitement about the

return of Antonio Berardi to the London catwalk, so she made sure to wear something super body-con in an aquatic

tribute to her latest designer crush.

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“This is Topshop. So she is a Nirvana girl, but not in the way we are Nirvana girls – she’s 17 and has just discovered them,” said Katie Grand, of the muse behind the Topshop Unique collection, which she styled for its show yesterday. I totally get that. And so did the elegantly dishevelled fashion It girls in the front row (Alexa Chung, Peaches Geldof, Jourdan Dunn, Julia Restoin Roitfeld, Olivia Palermo and Kate Moss). They nodded along to the soundtrack, pointing out cool pieces as the models stomped down the runway in caged high-heel sandals, pouting neon-pink lips. It referenced California skate and surf movies Dogtown and Big Wednesday, and was full of tough, androgynous, worn-in sportswear and denim pieces layered over each other. Or else it was neon neoprene swimwear with roughed-out denim shorts and cagoules thrown on top. My favourite pieces were the long, tube jersey dresses with prints straight from a sun-bleached surfboard and an erratically brilliant graffiti print on silk joggers. Lovely.

turnaround came in 2007 with his new backer, Jamey Hargreaves, whose family owns the budget retail chain Matalan and who managed to collar a deal with the crack Italian manufacturer, Ruccini (makers of Bottega). Second on board was Relative, the London PR company du jour (and didn’t Justine Fairgrieve and Sara Forage just look like a couple of hotties dressed up in their Macdonald sharp-shouldered dresses?). And third, there was the hiring of George Cortina, the indefatigable stylist and Fashion

Director of Japanese Vogue, who said, “Basically, you have to work three times harder in a comeback. But look, it’s fashion now, it’s relevant and it’s beautifully made.”

So what would Macdonald say to his critics who claim he’s derivative – a bit of Balmain here, a bit of Alaïa there?

“I’m dictating fashion in my own way. But, by God, I’m still learning. Look, even if I get it 60 per cent right, it’s still 60 per cent better than what I had before.”

Photography by Catwalking.com

Report by Rebecca Lowthorpe

6 NEWS LONDON FASHION WEEK’S THE DAILY Monday 21 September 2009

Report by Carrie Gorman

If Richard Nicoll, Ashish and Danielle Scutt are to be believed, we’re all going on a summer holiday. Tahitian inspiration at Nicoll, a cruise-ship rota of vacation hot spots ticked off at Ashish, and flamenco hems and Spanish topknots at Scutt all point to an exotic tourist trend for Spring/Summer 2010.

Except that this season it’s born of fantasy and childhood memories, in place of far-flung research trips. Gone are the days when designers sauntered off on expensive overseas jaunts in search of inspiration. Had

Wish you were hereNicoll journeyed to French Polynesia for his Tahitian-inspired ideas? “I thought only John Galliano did that!” he said.

Ashish, mindful of the economy, but craving a year following the sun, had his protagonist win herself a cruise on HMS Queen Camilla instead. “I need a holiday. Desperately,” said Ashish. “So I went into a fantasy dream-world of escapism to achieve it. That’s what a girl needs right now, right?”

Danielle Scutt accompanied him on the staycation. The idea for

her frilled apron skirts, pompom scarves and layers of transparent blouses was taken from postcards of Spanish dolls with appliqué netting, sent to her as a child. “I kept them – about 25 of them – because there was something incredibly charming about them. And also a bit naff.”

Along with Pauric Sweeney’s inventive amusement-arcade grab-a-gift installation at On/Off, sofa-surfing tourism is a building theme. Something tells us it’s not because of the carbon footprint.

Report by Julia Robson

Although Stella was a no-show at the Adidas presentation of her sports line (and we had to make do with her dad’s Silly Love Songs as background music) on Sunday morning, we can guess where she was. Now that she’s so body-conscious – thanks to sweaty sessions with Tracy Anderson, the personal trainer she shares with Madonna and Gwyneth – was she out test-biking jeggings (in snow-wash denim-look nylon), or her amazing corseted triathlon all-in-one in the first-ever London Skyride?

Pedal powerYeah, I know we fashion lot

presumed the roads had been cordoned off for the arrival of Anna Wintour, but in fact it was to accommodate 50,000 cyclists, who were given free reign to whizz around the capital without gas-guzzling cars.

“Cycling is close to Stella’s heart,” explained Adidas’ Emma Willey. “She has come in on her bike for a couple of meetings we’ve had in London.”

According to research, a lot of fashion-conscious women want to

keep fit but hate going to the gym (sound familiar?). Cycling is the perfect answer.

Yesterday’s Skyride impacted on fashion for all the wrong reasons. Come summer, when Stella’s cycling and triathlon lines are added to her sports range (highlights include fabulous slashed mesh tights in breathable fabrics, super-lightweight bombers and a cotton top with shoulder pads that will be sold in Asia’s super-boutique Lane Crawford as a fashion garment), this could all change.

DESIGNER MICHELLE JANK At Marcus Constable

STEPHEN JONES In Somerset House’s hallowed halls

TEAM LIBERTY In homage to Richard Nicoll

MARY KATRANTZOU’S MUM Keeping a careful eye on the collection

People

HIRSUITS YOU, SIR

CHARLIE LE MINDU WIGS OUT OFF SCHEDULE AT THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALLPhotography by Christopher James, Shaniqwa Jarvis & Tyrone Lebon

www.lfwdaily.com DESIGNER PREVIEW 7

Michael’s momentHis stellar Central Saint Martins MA collection secured designer Michael van der Ham prestigious

NEWGEN sponsorship and a debut show with Fashion East. Only 24 years old, the Dutch-born designer’s Cubist-style collage collections have made him a hot ticket of London Fashion Week. On the eve of his first

show, he granted The Daily a private view of his eagerly anticipated Spring/Summer 2010 collectionPhotography by OPHELIA WYNNE

Modelled by MORWENNA

Parties8 PARTIES LONDON FASHION WEEK’S THE DAILY Monday 21 September 2009

JAIM

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PHOEBE COLLING-

JAMES

BONNIE RAHKIT FIONA LEAHY

KARIN

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HILARY RIVA

CATHERINE NIETO

SOPHIE FERGUSON-

JONES

PETER ANDERSON

HAYLEY WOLLENBERG

JAYN

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TYRONE LEBON

JAM

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Photography by CHRISTOPHER JAMES and TYRONE LEBON

With thanks to AURA

PANDORA’S DAILY DISCO

www.lfwdaily.com RUBBISH 9

FASHIONABLE FUN

& GAMES

BROUGHT TO YOU

BY POP-UP PUBLICATION

RUBBISH MAGAZINE

www.rubbishmag.com

DESIGNER DISHDURO OLOWU COOKS A PLANTAIN OMELETTE

Interview by CAROLYN HART Photography by EMMA HARDY

FASHIONABLE CREATURE NO 6 BY ANDREW GROVES

MIKE ROWDRESSTeams a short hemline with

fashionable Falkes

t’s raining in Ladbroke Grove, greasy, grey and uninspiring, so it’s a thrill to arrive at Duro Olowu’s flat, four floors up above the Notting Hill traffic, an eyrie decorated in glowing rich colours and black walls. “Actually, they are smoke-grey,”

says Duro. That may be what it said on the tin, but it looks black to me and, at any rate, it forms a terrific background to his African artefacts, pots and bowls and vividly patterned upholstery designed by himself.

Duro’s website confides that his Spring/Summer 2010 collection was inspired by Picasso’s Mosqueteros, feather textiles from ancient Peru and 125th Street, Harlem. The lunch that he’s about to make, however, comes straight from his mother’s kitchen in Nigeria: plantain omelette.

“When I was a child,” explains Duro, “my mother, for a real treat, would make omelette with fried plantain on the side. It was usually either omelette on toast, or plantain as a main meal – to have both together was just incredible.”

He makes plantain omelette a lot during fashion week, it transpires. It keeps him calm: “It’s either that or a kir royale, and the colours are so good in a plantain. Jamaicans use them green, but in West Africa we like the ripe, yellow ones.”

To the uninitiated, plantain looks like a big banana, but it has a more subtle taste. It is delicious and it’s incomprehensible that we don’t eat more of it here, though not perhaps to the extent that Duro once did: “When I lived in Paris for two years, I ate it every day; I was addicted. I had to cut down.” Luckily, fashion week this year is going well, so he hasn’t eaten it in such quantities. Nevertheless, between us we managed to polish off a whole pan of fried plantains, and that was before Duro had even started on the accompanying omelette.

“Food was a big thing in my childhood,” he says. He grew up in Nigeria. His grandfather was Head Man of his tribal village and Duro has pictures of him on the wall in a

wonderful headdress and tribal robes. “I need home-cooked food. If you buy fresh food, you appreciate what you’ve got and think about how to cook it. These eggs,” he says, rooting about in the fridge, “come from Scotland, for instance.” He breaks eight of them into a bowl; it’s going to be a very big omelette.

“An omelette is an omelette is an omelette,” he says, “but add plantain and it becomes something else altogether. You can put anything you want in an omelette – my mother’s would include potatoes, onion and corned beef…”

He carries on chopping onion, cherry tomatoes and green peppers. More plantain gets fried in oil, until it turns a glorious, golden sticky brown. “In Nigeria,” explains Duro, “you’d put the cooked plantain onto plantain leaves and squeeze the oil out, but here you drain it on paper napkins. You can have plantain like this with a meat sauce, or you can roast it with fish in the oven, put it with mushroom sauce and a salad, or even have plantain chips. Or sometimes, in Nigeria, they do whole plantain sliced in half, seasoned with salt and drizzled with oil and grilled, then eaten with peanut butter…”

Plainly, it’s the world’s most versatile veg. We eat Duro’s plantain omelette as a very un-Nigerian rain pours down outside; it’s rich, fresh and grassy, with banana top notes and a sweet and salty edge. No wonder he’s addicted.

 Duro Olowu’s presentation is today at 4pm at Thomas Dane Gallery, 11 Duke Street, SW1. To find Duro’s plantain omelette recipe go to WWW. DAILYRUBBISH.CO.UK

FASHIONABLE CREATURE NO 5 BY ANDREW GROVES

MAGGIE ZINEKicks ass in her killer

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Karen Millen’s atelier gives the high-street label a designer-like edge. The Daily goes behind the scenes It’s not the norm for UK fashion brands to create and sample their collections in a design atelier. But then Karen Millen is not just any old brand. Instead, it functions much like most Paris fashion houses: with an atelier. It is this that has enabled the brand’s design team to deliver collections articulating a renewed focus on individuality and design integrity. “Creating garments in this way means we can lavish a designer-like attention to detail,” says the label’s Creative Director, Gemma Metheringham, who insists on working with the same fabric mills that supply the likes of Prada and Louis Vuitton, and factories that produce for designers such as Paul Smith and Nicole Farhi. “All of this means we don’t just create throwaway fashion. We’d like our customers to be able to pull out the Karen Millen coat they bought five years ago and still think it’s a beautiful, unique piece they love today.”

Tuxedo credo“The tuxedo jacket has always been a signature for us, but this season we wanted to play with a more modern, cropped silhouette. We used matt and shiny panels of fabric to give the idea of unwrapping a parcel to reveal what’s underneath. It is the most complex jacket pattern we’ve ever cut. The seam lines spiral around the torso and sleeves of the jacket so there is no symmetry. Unbelievably, every jacket is made up of 115 separate pieces and no sleeve or front panel is the same.” Gemma Metheringham, Creative Director, Karen Millen

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