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Vice Blog

IT'S A FASHION WEEK - DAY 1

One way you can tell Europeans aren't the best Christians is they schedule their Fashion Weeks--aka unapologetic pageants of vanity, lust, envy, gluttony, greed, sloth (on the account of "fashion coverage"), and wrath (in response to "fashion coverage")--smack in the middle of Lent. This week it's London's turn.

It's six days of parties, weird-people looking good/awful, an excuse to drink during the day and claim it's for work, all punctuated by horrendous shows to lay into. There might even be a couple amazing ones to remind us that fashion is sex with clothes on. Anyways, here's a compendium of what all's happened so far…

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[caption id="attachment_6594" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="(BTW, according to Lady Gaga's stylist, Jaiden rVa James is the next big thing.)"]

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Last Fashion Week, hairdresser Charlie Le Mindu put on a show where people wore Eiffel-Tower and lip-shaped hats made of hair. He also made dresses from huge wigs and turned models into hairy minotaurs. Everyone loved it. We wanted to talk to him about fashion and he wanted to dye his cat, so we combined both in this video.

[caption id="attachment_6737" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Last season's Le Mindu."]

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[caption id="attachment_6631" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Not Sarah Brown."]

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Not sure about you, but when I hear the word "fashion," I immediately think "Sarah Brown." Not only has she worn an Erdem dress before, she's also married to the prime minister, who's terribly trendy. I guess this is why the British fashion council asked her to officially open London fashion week. I certainly can't think of anyone more qualified.

Shockingly, her speech was very, very boring. Below are some of the highlights. If you wanna hear the whole thing, I'm guessing you could probably google it or something.

[caption id="attachment_6587" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Not a fat guy with a vagina on his head."]

[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6622" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="This is the London fashion week memorial space for Alexander McQueen. Blah, blah, if I call him Lee McQueen instead of Alexander, people are gonna think I knew him, blah, blah, tragic loss to the fashion industry, blah."]

[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6586" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Blah, blah, London as a center for global fashion, blah, blah, rising talent, blah."]

[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6623" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Meanwhile, I think this woman, a pig, and the square-headed guy below were actually some sort of paid fashion week photo mascots."]

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[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6624" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Mr. Le Mindu must be the emerging talent Mrs Brown was mumbling about, though he's actually French. And according to right-on comment-happy Vice readers, a cat killer."]

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La Roux was there too but she's just pretending to be French, and a really fat guy with a vagina hat and Charlie thought a music box was a great hat. The music veered between choir music and an electro beat under the rousing chorus of "FUCK ME IN THE ASS." Fashion is very high-brow.

Louise Gray's presentation was pretty unique. You don't get many fun, relaxed fashion shows. The models were SMILING and dancing and didn't look like suicidal alien fetuses.

There were Brighton Pier-style peep-hole boards, so you could nearly try on the furry jackets, patchwork pullovers and fluffy blue lace-up brogues. Nearly, in the same way that 3D Avatar nearly convinced you you weren't a lonely human loser on a regular planet. Anyway, Louise's show was great.

ELIZABETH JOHNSON AND ZOE JENKIN

I'm not sure if anyone else has picked up on just how weird it is having Vauxhall Fashion Scout's shows inside Freemasons Hall (HQ of the United Grand Lodge of England). This time last year we were all hauled up inside Lord Baden Powell's Scout headquarters by the Natural History Museum and the shop there sold woggles and books on how to tie a reef knot. There's a shop here too, where you can buy books like Freemasons for Dummies and Masonic fridge magnets. Masonic fridge magnets!? When did secret fraternal orders get so lame and Aunt-y? Is there somewhere I can pick up a couple Hellfire Club ceramic thimbles while I'm busy dashing my childhood vision of cloak-and-dagger political intrigue?

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It's not hard to spot the Masons either; they'll be the ones shuffling around in a Next suit carrying a briefcase full of secrets. Anyway, we all enjoyed the subliminal religious undertones.

It's no surprise that the Masons are getting into bed with fashion. What's not to like about a trade full of nepotism that loves anything vaguely elitist and casually screws around with myth and ancient symbolism all the time?

DANIEL BENSON

[caption id="attachment_6677" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="We had to zoom in on the metal on this guy's arms"]

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Lulu Kennedy's Fashion East was a big show because nearly every designer featured by this organisation goes on to be big international news; Gareth Pugh, Jonathan Saunders and Marios Schwab all started here. This is hat designer Nasir Mazhar's Fashion East debut but he's already internationally known. Nasir only sells the hats and the accessories, not the clothes, but with the Tekken-like forearm calipers he's already done everything he needs to do to convince us he's dragging fashion into the present.

[caption id="attachment_6652" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption=""I'm deranged. Deranged my love. I'm deranged down down down.""]

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We said Matrix/industrial fashion was on the comeback and Heikki Salonen delivered. Bowie's "I'm Deranged", from his totally underrated mid-90s, period played. The music was great, the models looked like the sort of hard and brainy Russian art girls that live inside my dreams, and the jackets kicked ass.

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[caption id="attachment_6653" align="alignleft" width="500" caption=""And the rain sets in. It's the angel man. I'm deranged.""]

[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6654" align="alignleft" width="500" caption=""Cruise me, cruise me, cruise me, babe.""]

[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6655" align="alignleft" width="500" caption=""The clutch of life and the fist of love. Big deal Salaam. Be real deranged Salaam. Before we reel. I'm deranged.""]

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Michael Van Der Ham makes dresses out of cut-ups from old material. One of the contributing editors from a very-big-deal fashion mag was all like, "What's the point, you know? Balenciaga do it so much better." Which was pretty funny because they'd probably charge like £4,000 for a skirt or something.

WORDS: DARYOUSH HAJ-NAJAFI
PHOTOS: DANIEL BENSON