The 5 Best Shows Seen at London Fashion Week Women's SS27 Has the English fashion capital risen again?

If in New York fashion brands are very American but not particularly international, and if Milan and Paris are the sanctuaries of institutional fashion, London is usually the frontier where the most indie and experimental fashion emerges. In recent times, especially post-Brexit, London Fashion Week had faced some difficulties, due in part to an ecosystem of brands that were perhaps too small and little-known, yet over time they have acquired their own stature and maturity while retaining their freshness.

Meanwhile, alongside the classic Burberry — the only brand with a truly international reach in the schedule — Alexander McQueen has also joined the fold, returning home after a long Parisian exile, giving British fashion week a welcome boost. And this year, the week of shows laid out before us displayed something increasingly strong and promising, thanks in part to the return of the classic Mulberry under the direction of Christopher Kane — a brand less well known on this side of the Channel, but for that very reason unburdened by a fixed or predetermined identity.

But what were the best shows of London Fashion Week?

1. Oscar Ouyang

Oscar Ouyang is the new standout designer of London Fashion Week. He has arrived at his second show, and yet his vision is crystal clear, razor-sharp. The world he invites his audience into — at once rock and Regency, historical and rebellious, yet free of any overly artificial posturing — is absolutely captivating because it is, when all is said and done, entirely translatable into real life. His are clothes for dreamers, but wearable ones: narrative imagination and a keen eye for product coexist in his collections with a sense of finish and polish that is already fully realised and mature. This second show of his, titled Cygnet, incorporates the image of swans across various pieces (Ouyang is a specialist in knitwear and the reconstruction of Fair Isle motifs) and perfectly encapsulates what we find written in the notes penned by Alex Kessler: «Something of a teenager assembling an idea of adulthood from what came before».

2.      Pauline Dujancourt

For this collection, Dujancourt (also a knitwear specialist) drew her inspiration from The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, managing fortunately not to bring into her show the dreadful slowness and toxicity that Fassbinder had poured into it. By filtering the stage work through her own sensibility, Dujancourt instead infused her show with a sweetly lyrical melancholy: as in the finest works of art, the original inspiration served only to further affirm the creator's own distinctive personality. Not even the predominance of cool tones disrupted the delicacy and romanticism of a collection that takes historical silhouettes and redraws them in a modern key without the slightest trace of pretension, and with a deceptive simplicity that conceals the complexity of its construction and finishing.

3.      Erdem

For several years now, Erdem Moralıoğlu has been presenting incredible shows and collections, refined down to the most obsessive detail, rich and dynamic. This year his brand passed the ten-year milestone, and his collections are of a surprising opulence. True, there may be less convincing looks among the others (this year they were the ones with fringing — few in number, but in our view weaker than the rest) — yet on the whole, his world of dishevelled aristocrats draped in gems is of a completeness and creativity that are truly rare today. If only the same agility of execution and fluency could be found in larger Maisons, fashion might well be in a better place right now.

4.      Mulberry

Christopher Kane returns with Mulberry and the result is sharp, fresh, brilliant. His show is modern with a touch of futurism, with no lingering over romantic aristocratic scenarios of the past. The design detail that catches the eye is that leitmotif of shaped leather recurring across jackets, coats, skirts and dresses. Perhaps that is the most forgettable element. What truly shines is the surgical precision in the choice of colours, the laser-cut silhouette, and the ability to create a sexy, evocative collection without resorting to any gimmick. Some looks with fewer cutouts are the most decisive in the collection precisely because, in their simplicity, the refinement of the cuts and materials becomes all the more apparent.

5.      Ashley Williams

In a world of cool girls as aloof and remote as sphinxes, or of ghostly meditations on the aristocracy of yesteryear, Ashley Williams is fun, as well as chic. Hers is a fashion that is not afraid to evoke the awkward years of an adolescence that seems set in the 1980s, transforming them into solid fashion ideas for a collection. There is a knowing touch of kitsch, there is a very personal vision of a femininity that defies convention, but above all there is a sparkling, playful and carefree spirit, with an eye always fixed on the right silhouette — which is often also the most unexpected one.