manager_1 This year’s event was extraordinary with diving models and female-directed Greek Odysseyseys.
London Fashion Week is back but it’s not quite the same as before.
Roland Mouret was known for his pre-pandemic fashion week turns at the National Theatre’s catwalk shows. He requested a film where actors wore his latest collection as costumes while their characters ate, danced, and rode motorbikes.
Rejina Pyo opened her show with Team GB athletes diving from the London Aquatic Centre’s diving board. Instead of models on a runway, Mouret stated before the screening. A shock of this magnitude [the pandemic] can be like grief or divorce. It will take at most five years for society and politics to recover. Fashion is the same.
Magaajyia Silverfeld, a Nigerien-French actor and writer, received his collection from France. She used the clothes to make a short film called Terma. This film recasts Ulysses myth through the eyes of Hera, the goddess of family, marriage and childbirth in ancient Greek mythology and religion.
Mouret said, “I owe so many of my career to women who have worn my clothes,”
“I’m not in fashion to make women into objects. I want to be part fashion week, but not to be sending girls to walk down a catwalk.” Robyn Birch, a European Championship silver medallist, performed choreographed dives in swimsuits designed by the designer at the start and end of Pyo’s show.
On a video conference call prior to the show, Pyo stated that “I feel like there is a mood about us at the moment is about a longing after freedom, and the only place where I feel the most free is in water.”
“I don’t want to build sets for shows that are going to be dismantled the next day. So I searched for somewhere with water and drama. The London Aquatic Centre is just so beautiful.”
The recce coincided with Olympic athletes practicing on the 10-metre board. She invited divers to join her return to London fashion week.
Terma opens with Hera (played by Silberfeld) getting out of a taxi along a dusty Greek street wearing a sunny yellow shirt dress that Mouret views as a new hero.
Post-Covid fashion means clothes that are true to reality. It’s clothes that can be your best friend. The designer believes day dresses are now less restrictive at the waist. This is a result of the Galaxy dress’s hourglass-strength tailoring.
He will launch Roland Mouret Body next month, an activewear range. “Covid has shown how important sport can be for maintaining mental health, for so many people,” he said. However, he noted that it was still difficult to sell evening wear as there are restrictions in each country. “One month ago, America was opening up. They were all ordering my evening gowns. They now have a [Covid] version and don’t want evening gowns anymore.”
