Fashion week, fashion sneak

London Fashion: the aesthetical celebration of our diversity, bravery and creativity as a nation? Or the only city where you can where you can pass off a truly shit looking tweed suit and Wellington boot combo (yes, Patrick Wolf, we're talking about you) in the name of "Style, daaarling"?

Well, last week was the time to decide, as the fash pack descended on our fair city for London Fashion Week and models previously contained in pages of magazines and various billboards around town roamed the streets unfettered just like normal people. For one week only, clusters of outlandishly clad beauties graced the pavements outside our hippest East London clubs, smoking furtively and revelling in their status as messengers of the fashionable zeitgeist. A lucky pap might snap eye-patch-touting model-of-the-moment Agyness Deyn (she has an eye infection and bet we'll all be wearing one next month) but you shouldn't count on it, apparently she's at the Jonathan Saunders party tonight. Kate might turn up though, but then, as one journo sniffs, "all the PR's say Kate might turn up"

It was into this snake pit that Glittersnitch bravely strutted, clutching an invitation to the British Fashion Council party at Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch, the first offshoot of the famous Notting Hill branch.

Rocking up to the red-carpeted entrance Glittersnitch was duly ignored by the waiting photographers and given the once-over by the clipboard yielding PR who couldn't have been more accommodating once she realised we were actually on the list 'you wouldn't believe the amount of people trying to get in tonight'

On entry we were immediately presented with a glass of champagne and as we scoured the crowds of beautiful people for the obligatory celeb spot we managed to take in Jasmine Guinness, Jodie Harsh and erm Ziggy from Big Brother. Peaches Geldof didn't show, but Glittersnitch heard she was at the H&M store opening along with her sister Pixie (whose half-term had conveniently co-incided with Fashion Week) and all the other usual suspects from this years dream guest list: Alexa Chung, Kelly Osbourne and Jamie Winstone. Kate, Sienna and Sadie are looking distinctly past it; in 2008, if you're over 24, you're over, full stop.

One thing that marks a fashion party out from every other glamorous event is the amount of extremely tall people and the sheer 'bravery' of some of the outfits. Green spandex tights and Victorian gothic headresses are no longer atrocious but 'avant garde' and 'style' is that elusive compound that ordinary people just don't get. Perhaps it is to be found in the air only models breathe, circulating 6 inches above the heads of everyone else? Maybe you've got to really, really sniff it? Either that or there were an alarming number of people with colds that night…

It was a fun crowd though, and one thing that really marks London out from the other fashion capitals — New York, Milan and Paris — is our ability is to throw a really good party. Yes, most of the big designers shun London in favour of New York, yes we might not be as big a player on the international buying circuit but the ease at which our fashion sect carry this knowledge, hold their heads high and pour another glass of bubbly is testament to our stoicism and diversity, bravery and creativity as a nation. Patrick Wolf: all is forgiven.

Written by GlitterSnitch on 18 Feb 2008 9:50 AM. Permalink