BRIEFCASE
Behind the scenes and on the streets during fashion shows in London.
London is probably the most difficult fashion week to define. I’m lovin ‘it; I used to love the old Somerset House days before Instagram cannibalized the experience, before influencers and editors came to the designer label shows, when you could walk through that place and meet amazing people standing, chatting, drinking a coffee.
Back then, you could simply ask a designer’s press agent for access. It was surprising how many of them said yes. They didn’t pay me, but I didn’t work for them and I wasn’t obligated to share my images with them.
If they had space and they liked my work, they allowed me to go backstage, where filming is completely different from what it is on the street. The space is tight, there are too many people, and there is an unbearably small window in which images can be collected.
This season, both in New York and London, I have seen several shows whose entire casts are black models. It’s been long overdue, and I hope it’s not just a fad, as is often the case with runway casting.
In the end, I realized that I do miss the change of pace, oscillating between the street and the shows. Being able to experience all aspects of the events helps bring London’s identity into sharper focus. It may be smaller than it was before the pandemic, but there are still a lot of people involved.
In a sense, it’s strange to think of London as the smallest of the major fashion weeks. She’s always at her best when she’s not trying to directly compete with her older siblings, but instead adopts a quasi-punk attitude that’s easygoing with interesting characters and a bit of oomph.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18
Source: www.nytimes.com