When the going gets tough, the tough dress up. Always have. Always will. It’s an atavistic human reflex. When battle looms you literally slap on your war paint. Maxed-out glamour during the 1930s. Lipstick duties during the 1940s. Solar bursts of yellow, body-caressing, stretchy knits, grown-up knee-length skirts, the crispest of shirts, plush coats and a whole lot of dress-up kit at London Fashion Week, February 2023.
This is not a balmy climate, particularly if you’re an independent designer without the cushion of perfumes, sunglasses and make-up to prop you up through the lean times and the occasional global pandemic.
And yet… this is the first time since Covid closed everything down that London Fashion Week has seemed close to recovering its old sparky spirit – both on the catwalk and the line up of A-listers in attendance, from Vanessa Redgrave to Florence Pugh and Stormzy, all proving
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