The coronavirus has come for Fashion Week, but Fashion Week is unbowed. With the 2020 edition of LFWM going all-digital, the event’s key designers talk us through how they’ve adapted to showing clothes in a world where showing clothes is (almost) impossible.
What’s been the biggest challenge with producing a lockdown fashion ‘show’
The logistics. With most of the manufacturing support only just coming out of lockdown, delays have occurred.
What’s been the biggest opportunity?
To reset and refresh.
What non-fashion skills have you picked up during lockdown?
Zoom.
How have you seen London’s fashion community come together in the past few months?
It’s been amazing to see the fashion community pull together in such trying times. Emergency Design Network is a marvellous initiative where I have been able to assist in the making of PPE equipment for the NHS.
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Is this a watershed moment for the fashion industry?
The fashion industry, like every other industry, has had to take stock. We are in turbulent waters – the tide is not likely to change for sometime.
Favourite British designer at the moment?
The collective EDN: Holly Fulton, Phoebe English, Bethany Williams and Cozette McCreery.
What advice would you give to graduates who want to set up a fashion business?
Sit tight, hold your nerve and don’t give up. Take this time to define what it is you have to say in terms of design and the logistics involved. Do your homework, know your trade.
Street style is impossible this year. Is that a good or a bad thing?
It still exists and rightly so, just played out through the confinement of ones own home.
What kind of role do you think a fashion show will play in five years’ time?
I do love a show, but in light of the current climate – where we have had to re-think the way we work – it all feels so unnecessary so excessive. Back to basics, less is more.
What has been your favourite show of all time?
John Galliano for Dior Haute Couture, Fall 2005/2006. The finale when John takes his bow is just beyond.
![british designer john galliano on the catwalk in an astronauts suit at the dior fallwinter 2006 2007 haute couture collection presented during paris fashion week photo by stephane cardinalecorbis via getty images](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/dior-fw06-1591783205.jpg?resize=768:* "France - Paris Fashion Week - "Dior" Haute Couture Collection")
If your S/S’21 collection had a mantra, what would it be?
Keep on keeping on.
Can you pick one piece or look from S/S’21 that defines the collection?
Lou Dalton x John Smedley Knitwear.
In a money-and-physics-no-object world, talk us through your dream fashion show.
It wouldn’t necessarily be a fashion show, just a celebration of life – that we are all still here and surviving.
Who makes it onto your perfect frow?
All those that managed to make it through this horrid time.
Who are your fashion heroes?
The girls behind EDN. So much love and respect for them all.
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