Day four of London Fashion Week was a busy affair, filled with the likes of Simone Rocha, Roksanda and Bahraini name Noon By Noor, which made its debut in the British capital. Often busy days pass in a blur, but here the names all brought their best game, delivering some outstanding collections.
Click through the gallery above to see highlights.
Simone Rocha
Rocha recently gave birth to her second child, so it's understandable that she was inspired by her newborn. For this collection, she found herself drawn to the world of baby clothing as well as the rituals surrounding christenings and welcoming new life.
To her already signature feminine style, this translated as more ruffle net tutus, satin ribbons threaded around collars and yards of beautiful church lace, as collars and shoulder wraps. Always pretty, this collection was something more, run through with a sense of family and history that was beguiling to watch.
Roksanda
A name that has always been relied on to bring some serious colour to proceedings, Roksanda outdid even herself for this season. Citrus lime, fuschia pink and lemony yellow parachute silks were cut and carved into bulbous, flowing, theatrical shapes that arrived in the filmed dance presentation filled with as much joy as it was with movement. The jaw dropping tones and wonderful tent like like cuts seemed to herald a new era of post-Covid freedoms – both virtual and physical – that have been so sorely missed.
Osman Yousefzada
As a multi-disciplined artist Yousefzada always has an eye on the bigger picture, and he honed in on the thorny topic of true sustainability in fashion. In his first runway show in almost two years, Yousefzada used the occasion to call out the shameful overproduction across the industry with a show called What Happened to Last Season’s Collection?.
Such is the scale of the problem as many clothes go straight from factory to landfill, having failed to sell during the season. To counter this, Yousefzada made a sizeable portion of the collection from a yarn made from wood pulp, and teamed up with mills to repurpose off cuts. One coat of fragments used the Indian kantha technique of overstitching to hold everything together, while dresses of recycled ruffles came in glorious shades of pink, orange and red.
Noon by Noor
For their London Fashion Week debut, Noon by Noor designers Shaikha Noor Al Khalifa and Shaikha Haya Al Khalifa took inspiration from the sarongs worn by pearl divers in Bahrain. This sparked a collection simply called 'Light' that consists of shirt dresses, fluid suiting and gossamer slip dresses in materials that floated. Washed cottons, coated linens, voiles, organza and even canvas arrived in shades of cream, with the occasional added fleck of pink, that all felt light and incredibly pretty.
Supriya Lele
A small name that packs a big punch is probably the best way to describe Lele. Since arriving on the London scene in 2017, courtesy of the Fashion East incubator, Lele has continued to build on a dialogue about the body, and what and how a woman chooses to show it. Leather tops came with gathered keyhole gaps and trousers were razor cut around the hips. Very much second skin, there were also elements for layering and covering that were clever and thoughtful.
Duro Olowu
A practiced hand with patterns, Olowu took inspiration this season from the recent exhibition of Eileen Agar, a British-Argentinian surrealist artist. Agar's work was distilled down into almost psychedelic patterning, in energetic combinations of terracotta, turquoise and yellow and splashed across wide legged trouser suits and A-line dresses. The combinations all felt vaguely 1970s, but more refined, and more sophisticated with Olowu's skill at pitching opposing colours and surface decoration against one another reaching a new level of gorgeous.
