London Fashion Week was
officially opened by Caroline Rush, Chief Executive of the British Fashion Council, who on the first morning welcomed key figures
including media, retailers, BFC patrons and partners from both the UK and overseas.
She put the emphasis this season on three different areas. First, the importance of the fashion industry to the UK – now worth
£66 billion, accounting for 6% of the UK’s market and employing
880,000 people; secondly, making the industry more aware of the challenges ahead through the
Brexit negotiations; and finally, why the BFC are championing the ‘Switch to Green Energy’
this season, a campaign headed by Vivienne Westwood, whose message was: “People ask,
‘What can I do to help save the environment?’ In all my time as an activist, I’ve never had a
satisfactory answer. Now we know: Switch to a Green Energy supplier.” Caroline Rush continued that in the following five days, the BFC would be staging more than 120
catwalk shows, whilst the Designer Showrooms, a static clothing and accessory exhibition, would take place at the Store Studios.
Located at the Aldwych, 200m
from Somerset House, the Store Studios is a modern industrial
space with a sleek, contemporary feel. The fashion sectors varied from one area to another, giving
clothing, handbags and accessories their own distinctive sector space. This season milliners were in demand with all the big
London buyers visiting the show and ordering for 2018. Obviously each store vies for exclusivity on designers, and therefore a tug of
war ensues, which does means that each store has its own ‘collection’ of millinery labels.
By Carole Denford
Hat in orange frayed buntal straw hand finished with raffia flowers and chunky crystals by Harvy Santos
32 | the hat magazine #75
Headpiece on an origami theme in leather bonded with satin from The Season Hats
Sophie Beale presented a capsule collection in black using parasisal, leather binds and transparent acrylic. With its rich mix of textures and strong silhouettes, the finish, balance and contrast styles of the six pieces were ‘perfection’ – a truly stunning display of modern millinery.
London Fashion Week
15-19 September 2017 The Designer Showrooms The Store Studios
The Headonism Creative Milliners
This season the British Fashion Council’s initiative ‘Headonism’ curated by Stephen Jones presented three millinery designers.
The Season Hats are designed and made by Paul Stafford, who graduated five years ago with an MA from the Royal College of Art. The label has since developed an innovative range of headwear that folds flat, much like a fan, then unfolds into hats/headpieces that are technical masterpieces. Taking forward the origami connection, for this season he had developed headpieces in leather, bonded with satin.
Perched headpiece with a brim of clear acrylic sandwiching jet-black shredded goose feathers by Sophie Beale
Harvy Santos showed his most distinctive and fun collection to date. Loop the loop is a playful swirl of contemporary style taking the ‘bow’ or ‘loop’ as its theme. Combining stitched braids, raffia, silks, sateen, chunky crystals and Spirographic prints, this was a colourful and lively collection of fun-yet-wearable pieces. Harvy added: “The inspiration was taken from the sweet, sunny and sometimes silly hats our mums, aunts and grandmothers used to wear, hats that always made an impact on me, whether they were garish, gorgeous or both.”
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