Points to Ryan Lo for picking the most ironic soundtrack possible for his show, which opened Fashion East on the last day of London Fashion Week. 'I’m every woman,' Whitney Houston belted as Lo’s adult princess party kicked off in the NewGen tent. Based on domestic goddesses, the collection played with macaroon colours, lace, fruit prints, petticoats, crochet, and whatever else you’d find in Candy Spelling’s gift-wrapping room, but the girly gusto of the show seemed unmistakably more girly than womanly. Which was probably the intention.
For her final Fashion East show, Claire Barrow looked to the 'otherworldly' in her creation of a made up gang of artist types, one of whom rocked a transparent coat take on her doodled-on signature outerwear. Perhaps it was the eclectic cast of real people, but with their bare feet, face paint and purposely gawky silhouettes, they had a certain street performer quality about them.
Ashley Williams, whose show notes observed the 'unstoppable success of her debut last season', looked to coastal America in the eighties for her second season. It was instantly evident in swimwear with parodic postcard prints of a boat called ‘Happy Ashley’ and the words ‘Dream Boat’ splashed across them. Most notable was a streamlined pleated denim dress, which wasn’t particularly eighties but embodied a clear American aesthetic.
