London Fashion Week: The Round up

So you read my reviews of all the shows I went to, right? If you didn't you should; blood, sweat, and tears, people! But if you didn't it doesn't really matter; what I did wasn't even barely the tip of the iceberg. There was a whole lotta fashion going on last week! Although I didn't get a chance to look at the photos and form an opinion until a few days after each show, I was seriously impressed with the whole week. Here comes the montage(s). What is the plural of montage? Anyway here are the pictures:

Left to right: Christopher Kane, Ashish, PPQ, Bora Aksu

Left to right: TopShop Unique, ,Danielle Scutt, Luella, Marios Schwab, Louise Goldin

Black was the overriding colour theme, reflected I think in my picture selection, although of course Henry Holland and a selection of others brough rainbow brights to the ring. Other buzz words i've been hearing a lot this week are gothic, punk, power dressing and eighties. Eighties, eighties, oh, and the eighties. Like everyone else I was loving Christopher Kane's nuder, more commerical offerings, which were structured yet feminine. I have also been growing fonder and fonder of emphasised angular shoulders and curved oversized sleeves, shown here at Topshop Unique and seen first hand by moi at the Bernard Chandran show last Sunday. If power dressing is back, then this is how I want to do it. I read that Marios Schwab "changed your perspective on clothes" with a show featuring 3D dresses and 3D glasses handed out to all attendees, a concept which immediately made me think of Hussein Chalayan.
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I had tickets to the Bora Aksu show and having seen the pictures, i'm absoloutely gutted I missed it. I went to an online marketing conference instead. Its just not fair or right is it?! The gothic-punk aspect of Bora Aksu, with the tearing and the layers was both exciting and ripe for credit crunch happy DIY. I wonder how many people are out there ripping designer holes in their just about ready to throw out winter tights as we speak? Despite all the hype about who was on their catwalk, the PPQ show was another success, filled with ruffles, monochrome and flashes of colour. And of course I have to mention, again, the nineties stylings of Ashish and the oversized sweaters, which i've already started sourcing from charity shops ready for next winter.
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I know that a lot of people gush about "fashion as art" at this time of year, and whilst I do see that as beautiful and important, I'm also big on fashion I can actually wear. And LFW AW09/10 really came up trumps on that front, for me at least!
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NB: I read an article on the Independent Fashion Blogger Blog last week that said that it wasn't OK to take photos from other sites, even if you reference where you've taken them from. I sort of suspected this to be the case, but hadn't given it more than a glancing thought. Since then I haven't stolen a single photo but it would have been impossible to write this post without a little robbery! All the photos in the lead montage are from vogue.co.uk. I'm sorry, please don't hate or sue me Vogue. I love you. And this is the last time i'll do it. Or at least i'll try to make that true!
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Sorry if this read like incoherent bullet points; I've had so many little thoughts about the shows pop into my head randomly, and I don't have a lot of time to write them down! I promise I will sit down and write my next post properly; scouts honour!
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Next posts: My new season purchases from Primark and Topshop! I had a shopping binge, and I loved it!
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Love, Tor xx