pierre garroudi – lfw – ss11 – sketch crowd – jenny robins
Illustration by Lesley Barnes
Turns out London Fashion Week is a breeze by bike and is thoroughly recommended when hot tailing it between various Bloomsbury venues, doctor as inevitably shows fall within minutes of each other. Actually I throughly recommend traveling around London by bike, one word of warning; once started it becomes increasingly difficult to pour yourself onto the tube. Anyway, I digress from FASHION and within Amelia’s Magazine archive there are posts dedicated to the joys of cycling. In fact why not read Amelia’s interview with Bobbin Bicycles?
But returning to day two of London Fashion Week, in which Fashion Editor Matt Bramford and I met super early outside My Beautiful Fashion for Bernard Chandran before hot-peddling it to Craig Lawrence’s beautiful collection in the elegant settings of the Portico Rooms.
After dashing back up to Covent Garden via the trusty bike to collect the YSL manifesto, I easily returned to Somerset House in time for my 1pm appointment with Betty Jackson. For reasons I can’t put my finger on, I am strangely intrigued about Betty Jackson.
Illustration by Lesley Barnes
A long standing figure on the London Fashion Week on schedule, this is a designer name I am familiar with, but whose work I know incredibly little about. It appears I was the only one to be so clueless, as the tent was packed to the rafters and as the lights dimmed, and the runway cover was removed, the usual dash to seat the VIP’s caused a mini-pile up as people jumped into their alloted positions or squeezed into any available gap.
After the door scrum was settled and the late comers quietly ushered in, the audience are plunged into darkness, as the first model arrives on the catwalk. A strange hush descends upon the crowd, the chattering murmur of minutes before is replaced by scribbling pens, tapping on phones and the constant wizz of a camera’s flash.
It is -especially on a cold London September day- easy to forget you are watching Spring Summer Collections, especially when designers’ tempt you with beautifully thick knits and wool infused trousers.
Betty Jackson’s S/S 2011 was beautiful simplicity in her presentation of updated 1940′s land girl outfits, the essence of which were most recently seen on Keira Knightly and Sienna Miller in the Dylan Thomas Biopic “The Edge of Love.”
Illustration by Gemma Randall
Luckily after being lulled into a gentle consideration of how warm those knit would be. Betty Jackson threw a curve ball with the appearance of a swimsuit and blouse adorned with club tropicana prints before returning the collection to soft muted browns, delectably realised in the above jumpsuit illustrated by Gemma Randall.
During shows, one occasionally glances around the room – fashion shows are a great place to watch peoples’ expressions – perhaps to see how the collection is going down or to try and catch a glimpse of the outfits from various angles. In the course of watching a model stalk up to the photographers pit, I noticed a very beautiful Jo Wood standing (looking, it has to be said completely unperturbed) by the door.
Illustration by Gemma Randall
A luxurious collection, the shapes were well made in their simplicity and the designer maintained the crowds attention with the occasional loud print or teeny tiny swimming costumes, interdispersed within sophisticated summer glamour of lengthy cut black garments. Mind you, it appears all designers suffer slightly from an obsession with lots of flesh (mainly leg) and teeny tiny shorts? They LOVE it! As showcased in our extremely popular (and excellent) coverage of Charlie Le Mindu seen here and here by Amelia Gregory and Matt Bramford.
Categories ,Betty Jackson, ,BFC, ,Charlie le Mindu, ,Edge of Love, ,Flesh, ,Jennifer Saunders, ,Jo Wood, ,Land Girls, ,London Fashion Week, ,Spring Summer, ,SS 11, ,Tracey Emin
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