London Fashion Week Roundup: Day Five

Nasir Mazhar and Meadham Kirchhoff rounded the week off in the absolute best way possible.

by VICE Staff; Photos by Peter André Leon Talley

September 19, 2012, 10:00am

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.

MEADHAM KIRCHHOFF

Meadham Kirchhoff’s shows are a favourite of everybody who refuses to let fashion be defined by leather-look leggings and Timbaland wedges. Although it always manages to end up being annoyingly hard to get in to, and “are you coming to Mee-dum babe?” haunts my sleep for weeks afterwards, all the bullshit hassle of past London Fashion Weeks has been made worthwhile for the ingenuity and charisma of their shows. Since the ridiculously good AW2010 collection, where they (Mr. Meadham and Mr. Kirchhoff, btw) draped floor length, lace-trimmed veils over the models faces and stuck bright red and black crowns on top, they’ve been the gem in an otherwise slick and dull series of events.

M+K have also made a point of collaborating on the high street, making their style accessible to 14-year-olds (not really, fashion editors have way sharper elbows) everywhere. Their collections for Topshop, inspired by Marilyn Manson and My Little Pony, have been consistently affordable and high-end, which is useful because the retail prices for their mainline collections are kind of insane. Basically, if it’s below a grand and it’s not a t-shirt, you’re either a shoplifter or have store discount. Despite that kind of behaviour normally making a label a write-off, the whole Meadham Kirchhoff aesthetic is so DIY you kind of assume they don’t really expect anyone under the age of 40 to buy it. It’s like inspirational couture made out of stuff from Oxfam, except it’s really, really good.

Despite having coined a sort of "storybook witch meets Natalie Portman in Leon" trademark look, Meadham’s last collection was sequins, disco-balls and ABBA. It was FUN, but, on the whole, I was a bit disappointed. Although painting your models' faces green is definitely different, I was never going to be able to re-interpret it out of the bucket of fabric scraps I save especially for my desperate Meadham moments. Yes, I’m sorry, I really do have those. AW12 lacked some of the dark energy and weird insanity of previous collections, so this season was important – the most exciting designers in London could either push on with something different (and arguably a bit too alienating), or do what they do best: dressing models like big, bad bitches.

Wallking in, the first thing everyone noticed, obviously after checking whether or not they’d accidentally been given a front row ticket, was the smell. Normally fashion shows smell of posh sweat and new leather. This room smelled of heaven. It smelled of dreams and joy. Am I over-excited? It might have gone to my head, they sprayed it on everything and I’ve been sitting at my desk with my nose in a thank-you note for the last three hours. Seriously, though, Penhaligon’s provided this scent called Cornubia and it might as well have been called coke-rage, because it literally smells of wanting. The runway was set up with partitions, and flowers and cakes and stuff, which looked great but the smell was really the most important thing for me at that point in time. I just googled it so you can get an idea: imagine the smell of “a glamorous oriental rich with swathes of cherry-sweet vanilla and hypnotic heliotrope”. Oh my good god.

What appeared before me, amidst this incredible smell, were little princesses: all ringlets, rococo hats and pointy high heels. Everything was corseted, beaded, and completely beautiful. Playing up to their trademark neo-femininity, a red tulle dresse was cut through with heavy blue pom-pom polka dots and paired with matching spotty red trousers underneath. A three-quarter length sleeved corseted top in black, cream and gold brocade was run down with fluffy, cream silk bows and paired with a fringed mini-skirt and a matching round, flat hat.

It was like Clueless meets Marie Antoinette, in the least shit way ever. What could have veered into Sexy Piratesses of The Caribbean territory was more like inspired Dior, and absolutely everything was crying out to be on Christy Turlington’s body in 1994. The hats, incidentally, which looked like something The Little Princess would dream up in an attic somewhere (OK, OK; enough girl references now) were all made by Nasir Mazar, whose show ran almost concurrently to Meadham Kirchhoff’s in the courtyard space outside.

I know you can see this all in the pictures, but the way that the clothes fell as they moved was so impressive, because although they were undoubtedly costume, it all looked so fresh and so disgustingly cool. The ribbons and glass brooches pinned into the model’s hair were offset by irrefutably modern accents, red devil horns on one, pop socks and a Minnie Mouse t-shirt on another. Although the allusion to Marie Antoinette was palpable in the stacks of cupcakes and fingerfuls of icing, the multiple layers of reference to different eras prevented it from being at all clichéd. Meadham Kirchhoff, consider this a love letter, and thank-you for the thank-you note. It smells fucking amazing.

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