London Fashion Week- Marios Schwab @ Vitamin Water and Deer Brains.

The models seem to be getting smaller yet taller every year. I used to think it was a shame that girls are so skinny for modelling, because of the impression it forces upon young girls. But now one comes to realise that you aren’t supposed to be attractive to strut down the catwalk: you have to be reminiscent of a coat hanger-wiry, and able to bend a hard left. On average, the girls have got uglier and edgier looking, and this applies for nearly all shows- strange facial compositions on top of a skeletally thin exterior was the commonality for what was displaying the new collections. There were a couple of exceptions to this generalisation, but Marios Schwab’s show wasn’t one of them.

The most impressive visual aspect of the show was the hair on the models: Paul Hanlon for L’Oreal certainly did a great job in squeezing every loose hair into the tightest buns imaginable. I wish the same level of enthusiasm was put into the soundtrack for the show; the unoriginal and very typical of fashion show music came from a name that complimented the failed attempt by the track to be edgy; an entity named ‘Rokk’.

In regards to Fashion Week itself, there had been whispered comments from a number of media outlets about the lack of class that was present last September (one memorable anecdote from the Evening Standard’s LFW coverage was of a grimy hipster on the front row, munching on Percy Pigs while Sir Philip Green looked on in horror). This was a stark change for the positive compared to that; nearly everyone there looked great, and many opted for an under-dressed but respectable look, which seemed to be more agreeable than the ‘see how many colours I can get away with while wearing an obscure lo-fi electro band t-shirt’ trend that was all too familiar in September.

This installation of designers is certainly quieter than September: only the die-hard fashionistas lurk outside the shows ready to dash inside, and luckily nobody looked ridiculous enough to stand out too much. Coverage seemed perhaps more intense than in September, which is surprising considering that there were some bigger names then compared to what there was this time. But this didn’t stop the paparazzi box being rammed full of disgruntled photographers playing some sort of phallic game with each other over who has the biggest lens.

The layout of Somerset House was very lax last year with minimal security into the shows (I know this, because I managed to get in without a pass of any kind to several shows). This time I must say there were several more filled out suits on every entrance, making it a lot more difficult to ‘sneak in’, forcing fashion fans to try their luck in queuing for shows, an endeavour that seemed pretty sound.

The press release speaks of ‘the lack of relevance to society’ in the collection. But it did appear that it
aesthetically suited a formal function; there did seem to be an attachment to usage within society, albeit a heavily brogued one. Schwab claims to draw on Loos’ essays on ‘bringing craft to an otherwise functional utilitarian object’, but it doesn’t seem appropriate to imagine those two concepts apart at every hurdle. One cannot deny a broad use of the colour spectrum in the show, but to describe it as ‘vivid’ is another matter, particularly for a collection that focused on maroons, canvas browns and black as its main colours.

All in all, not a bad effort from Schwab, who appeared to please the crowd to the greater extent, but not ascratch on last September, where his collection, his fifth at London Fashion Week, was almost universally praised for its distinctness. Ah well, maybe the fashion world echoes the second album sentiment where it is always the trickiest to write; hopefully he can come back with a reprise come September.

Thank you to Jess @ wearesocial for the tickets.