Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2011 Catwalk Review: Maria Grachvogel


All illustrations by Maria del Carmen Smith

Now Maria Grachvogel was a strange set up from the start. Arriving very late anyway (fashionably late you may say) we were 15 minutes late sitting down and so were all ushered in to a very grand looking ballroom with a photographers pit on opposite ends of the room with a bunch of guests looking uncomfortable standing in the middle of the room. The set up was so that the models could come out of one corner and walk in a square around all of the guests giving everyone a perfect picture shot. Great in theory, this site not so great in practice.


All photography by Jemma Crow

What essentially happened was crowds of eager spectators standing in the line of the photographers, malady being shouted at to “move in” and then the sudden rush of people to the free front row seats available at the last minute; I almost ended up on Hilary Alexander’s lap due to my frantic positioning.

But that settled, price the models started to do their thing. To be honest I didn’t have such high hopes for an earth-shattering collection, and it wasn’t. But there was some nice attention to detail. Dresses were fitted at the front so that they could drape at the back in a cross over motion; very feminine and beautiful to show off the erogenous area less used. Some muted prints came out towards the middle of the collection in flowing silky dresses and jumpsuits, as did a burst of orange from a standout dress, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

The main niche of Grachvogel’s pieces is the fit process on “real women” which apparently makes the clothes flatter all sizes. Now that’s all well and good and it’s something they pride themselves on, but why then go and show your whole collection on super skinny models? Don’t you know there’s a trend to use non-skinny models this year? Tsk.

Categories ,A/W 2011, ,Catwalk review, ,Hilary Alexander, ,Jumpsuits, ,Lancaster Room, ,lfw, ,London Fashion Week, ,Maria del Carmen Smith, ,maria grachvogel, ,plus size, ,print, ,Real women, ,Savoy Hotel, ,Skinny models, ,Strand

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