Brexit and curves on the catwalk: London fashion week opens for business with a grown-up style agenda

If New York is the city for commercially-minded fashion, Milan the place for glamour and Paris for art, then London’s style reputation has long been one of experimentation. But if anything was clear on the first day of London fashion week, it was that while the city’s designers continued to innovate, they were also facing up to the challenges of 2017 from a pragmatic, grown-up point of view.

Caroline Rush CBE, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, which oversees the ￡28 billion-a-year industry, officially opened the 66th fashion week with remarks describing a new Switch to Green Energy Campaign and detailing the BFC’s Brexit agenda - namely the need to continue welcoming international fashion talent into the UK and tariff-free access to the EU.

“We're really clear that we have always been the most multicultural, diverse, collaborative city, and we’re known internationally for that,” Rush told the Telegraph after her speech. “We have business people from over 70 countries at fashion week and we welcome them with open arms. Our international outlook is really important.”

At Amanda Wakeley - Theresa May’s go-to designer - that outlook came through in a “luxurious bohemian” collection based on an imagined trip to South America. Wakeley’s clients will appreciate her attention to detail, like jackets with silk lined sleeves (for added lustre when sleeves are rolled), and integrated ribbon belts that cinched the waists of silk dresses in tones of lemon-yellow, clementine and lavender. Bet on seeing the Prime Minister in the collarless, kimono-like day coat shot through with lurex and raffia stripes.

Eudon Choi, whose new coats for John Lewis’s Modern Rarity range recently arrived in stores, looked to modernist designer Eileen Gray’s house in the south of France. His assured collection embraced wavy-sleeved dresses, double-breasted blazers and a seaside stripe or two, but the streamlined basket bags were among the most compelling takeaways.

At Teatum Jones, meanwhile, the grown-up feel swooshed in by way of voluminous dresses and bicolour pleated skirts that women could wear almost everywhere, including to the office. The clothes were inspired by gold medal-winning para-equestrian Natasha Baker, but most of the post-show chatter centred on the diverse model cast, which once again included curvier-than-average models and amputees.

“We love real women and want to dress a variety of real women,” designer Catherine Teatum said. “It’s important that the clothes work” -- and these will, at least as hard as the women who wear them.

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