London Fashion Week Roundup: Day Five

London Fashion Week has come to a close in a bejeweled flurry of C-list celebrities, overdressed middle-aged men and hyper-inflated egos. So you didn't have to deal with any of that nonsense, we went down every day to cover the shows that we thought mattered the most. Here's what happened on the fifth and final day.

NASIR MAZHAR

For the last three years, and the six seasons they encompass, Nasir Mazhar has consistently been the best thing at London Fashion Week. That sounds like hyperbole, and I'm sure you'll argue that's simply all it is if your idea of "good" means the same, bodycon, evening-dress-orientated waste of time that takes up most of fashion week. However, if you subscribe to the idea that fashion is supposed to be innovative and weird and relevant and make you laugh, but also make you wish you were cool enough to pull off every piece of clothing on display, then Nasir's your guy. 

Surely everyone has to endorse that idea of fashion, actually? Because, otherwise, you'd knowingly be watching and getting excited about the same, recycled designs being churned out season after season, bar a minor, superfluous change to the button detailing, or whatever bullshit tactic the PRs put in the show blurb to make you think you're watching a wholly original spectacle of design. And that would be a very depressing way of living your life.

Aaanyway, Nasir's SS13 collection was fucking great. His last collection was a boiled-down version of everything good on tumblr – so that's cyber-punk, grime, rude girls, hip hop and sportswear, as opposed to 13-year-olds pulling a face on webcam, brandishing a baggie full of oregano. This season played off the same kind of influences (fetish and clubwear both got a nod this time round, too), but handled them in a completely new way. While last season looked kind of like the wardrobe of one of those towering, spindly cyber-punk gay guys with white contact lenses and a crippling addiction to ketamine, this season was all (mostly) wearable, summery sportswear that made me wish I wish 6'4" and could pull off the white patterned trousers without looking like a complete idiot.

Everything was styled by Anna Trevelyan and Matthew Josephs, who are arguably the only two people in London who make styling seem like a legitimate job, rather than something that falls under that bullshit "creative career" thing that people try to pass off as truth at parties. For example, "No, I don't like getting too tied down, y'know? I prefer to dabble in whatever creative enterprise tickles my pickle that week. Like, last week I designed a flyer for my friend's electro-funk dance party and this week I'm styling a shoot for this really great up-and-coming kids' fashion magazine."

Needless to say, the styling was impeccable, as was the casting, with all the models genuinely looking like they belonged in Nasir's throwback, hyper-future gear, rather than the stunted clusterfuck of awkwardness it could have been.         

Last season, Nasir pumped old grime mixtapes through the speakers; this time he had Merky Ace, Kozzie, Marger, Nolay, Flirta D and Faze Miyake performing live, which was genuinely incredible. People have been saying grime's dead for the last however many years, but all it needed was to be transposed into a room full of white, middle-aged fashion people in Oliver People's glasses earnestly bopping their heads to Nolay spitting over Darq E Freaker's "Cherryade", and everything was right once again. I wish time travel existed, purely so I could go back to Plaistow in 2002 and play a video of the whole thing to everyone in this room.  

Thanks, Nasir, for making up for the few, previous mind-numbingly dull days and reminding me that fashion week can actually be a lot of fun.  

Click through to the next page for coverage of Meadham Kirchhoff, the only other show worth going to yesterday.