London Fashion Week: Fourth Day

Finally, really interesting shows began - however, morning hits (Peter Pilotto, David Koma, Mark Fast) had to be sacrificed in order to tell about the third day of the LFW. We arrived at Somerset House shortly before the Nicole Farhi show and immediately found a stylist there. Lesia Mint and fashion directors L'Officiel Sveta Tanakina. Both girls were dressed in Arthur's latest work "Forget Me Not" Lomakina - beautiful sweaters, made from thick wool in the back, and sheepskin in the front. Street-fashion photographers immediately attacked Lesya and Sveta - the girls looked very impressive together. They were photographed, however, not very willingly - they were afraid that the next morning similar sweaters would appear somewhere in Topshop.

^{Lesya Mint and Sveta Tanakina in Forget Me Not sweaters}

Street-fashion photographers attacked us and Sasha Boyars, but we were already rushing towards the Royal Opera House to the Nicole Farha show.

^{Models at Somerset House}

Farhi, besides us, arrived Anna Wintour in the same Prada coat, Karin Roitfeld, Hamish bowles and other important editors. Actually, all of today has gradually turned into a celebrity spotting - we realized this a little later, standing with cameras at the ready at the middle of an East End eatery, where Karin Roitfeld went to drink coffee before showing Christopher Kane.

Farhi's show, like last time, was held at the Royal Opera House - more precisely, in a fragile glass extension to the theater, which is called Paul Hamlyn Hall. The organizers (and we too), of course, were incredibly lucky with the sunny weather - the podium was flooded with diffused daylight, and models in white dresses and relaxed sandals without heels looked even more spectacular.

^{1. The end of the show Nicole Farhi 2-3. Anna Wintour (Vogue US) and Hillary Alexander (The Daily Telegraph) in the first row}

A little distracted to talk about invitations. They are not only sessile, but also standing - these were exactly what we had at yesterday’s show of Matthew Williamson in Battersea, and after standing first half an hour in the queue for the show, and then another half hour - at the very show, I thought that it was high heels - not the best idea for LFW. Moreover, even if there is a place, you need to have time to take it - otherwise you will have to get up where you can. The shows are so crowded that the organizers are switching to the principle of first-come, first-served - and only that Karin Roitfeld can safely drink coffee and take up space a minute before the start. The rest is better to come early. Tellingly, foreign editors and journalists of even the highest rank come to the show without delay - we flew into the hall more than once and saw that Anna, Hamish, Suzy and the others had already taken their places.

This time we landed not in their places, but in the gallery, as I was waiting at the entrance to Sasha, and Sasha ran into the building in about fifteen minutes - and stated that she had lingered for the most valid reason in the world: she was photographingScott Schumann. Well, she took the opportunity and took a picture of him.

^{Scott Schumann, author of The Sartorialist blog, before Nicole Farhi}

By the way, Tommy Ton also came to London and already weighed an incredible number of models and high heels for Style.com.

After Farha, buses and taxis gathered spectators and took them to the East End to the show. Christopher Kane. For some reason, we went there on the subway, but on the way to the show we saw how a grader of a French Vogue wore a leopard coat and purple sandals in a typical East-End shabby eatery Karin Roitfeld.

^{Karin Roitfeld}

Kane's dramatic show, with textured dresses of piercing and pure colors — lime, pink, yellow, emerald green, carrot orange — and Guiseppe Zanotti’s neon shoes were among the best of the week.

In the evening, all the celebrities went to the iconic Giles show, which seemed to be the most difficult to get to, and we decided to stop at the coveted Apple Store at Covent Garden and listen to the public talk of the founder of Dazed & Confused Jefferson Hack and creative director Acne Johnny Johansson.

^{1-2. Jefferson Hack (Dazed & Confused) and Johnny Johansson (Acne) 3. Sasha Boyarskaya and Johnny Johansson}

During the conversation (admit, Hack spoke more, but we didn’t mind) I realized what a good London fashion week is: it is not hermetic, and it’s very easy to become involved in all this hustle and bustle. Even if you have no accreditation or invitations - anyone who is interested in it at all can freely go to Somerset House to chat among fashionistas, test their outfit on a dozen street fashion photographers, check mail on one of the laptops in the lobby. Everyone can watch online broadcasts of shows, and everyone can also come to the series of meetings at the Apple Store. On the photo above, Sasha, for example, asks what Acne designers inspired in the spring collection - and is surprised to find out that monochrome sweaters and pants without a single print are inspired by Irish tattoos and geishas (!). This is how inspiration works, Johnnie said that in the course of creative thinking, the tattoos were taken and embodied in a long bright red sweater. Actually, why not.

However, most of the events of the week are still closed to the public: we felt it when, through a crowd of people, we broke through to the entrance to Vivienne Westwood's party at Selfridges department store, with an exhibition of shoes that she had produced throughout her career. Judging by the exhibits, most modern shoe bestsellers have already been invented by Westwood in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

^{Party Vivienne Westwood + Melissa}

While we were wandering home, reeling from fatigue and pink champagne, I found a tweet that fairly accurately describes the condition of all LFW visitors:

#LFW. Busy Tired. Coffee Bags. Sunglasses. 6 inches. Coat. Handbag. Blackberry + charger. Neon. Prints. Heels. Wedges. #restneededurgently

Well, the main thing is the expectation of today - of course, the Burberry show. You can also watch it at Look At Me - at 19.00 Moscow time on this page (you can register for the event here).