London Fashion Week opened Saturday with all things digital. The show opened with humanitarian and eco-responsible visions in mind, showcased by Bethany Williams, the socially engaged designer who has long used recycled garments part created by prison inmates in her collections.
Bethany Williams released All Our Stories, a collection and show video that stemmed from her work with the East London grassroots organisation, The Magpie Project, a charity supporting women and children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
“What we noticed through the story-telling workshops was that the moral of each story always came to kindness, care and respect for one another and how these traits, whilst still important in childhood, have just as much meaning in adult life,” commented Williams, who was inspired by visits to the V&A Museum of Childhood’s garments archives.
In a morning display, Auroboros, a hyper-tech fashion marque whose motto is “create your own fashion fantasy”, added a different perspective to LFW. Auroboros modestly called their Biomimicry Digital ready-to-wear collection video, “history in the making” and an “activation [that] redefines fashion”.
The bio-mechanical-looking creations included blends of nature and technology, sci-fi party fantasy gear that, at its best, recalled Iris van Herpen.
This London Fashion Week first can be purchased as collection at Dress X and on the Auroboros website.
Qasimi provided Saturday’s most poetic moment; a sherbet and dusty desert-hued collection that referenced the colours and the shapes of the Gulf Region. Floating tunics, elongated shirting with Nehru collars, block check suits, and a brilliant women’s trouser-suit cut with dhoti pants marched about an all-white modernist villa. This turned out to be designed by architect Sir Raymond McGrath, and was nestled amongst a landscaped idyll, designed by Christopher Tunnard.
2019 bought a unfortunate and untimely demise for Khalid Al Qasimi (Qasimi’s founder). However, his legacy and ideas lived on in this collection with craft and class.
