London Fashion Week

It is a tradition of fashion weeks everywhere that the first day is sluggish, sometimes to the point of torpor. Everyone wants to show later in the schedule in the belief that final billing equals top billing. The inevitable results are bottlenecks in the last two days and an arid desert in the opening ones.
Sometimes, however, deserts produce unexpected blooms. The start of London Fashion Week was no exception.
Kit Willow presented her first collection - much of it exquisite lingerie - at Sydney Fashion Week in 2003 and since then has intermittently taken part in New York Fashion Week. But this was her debut in London. "It feels more natural to be here, " she said backstage. "Also the more I looked into distribution in the US the more I could see it was going to cost a fortune to set up. It's easier to do business here".
Willow's aesthetic is part rock-chick/Goth, part Bondi socialite. Her woman wears cream or black leather leggings and washed leather jackets and she's big on wafting - chiffon ponchos and wispy Grecian dresses are her calling card. As are her nipples which she likes to cup under huge white cummerbunds or frame with sky blue basques. Lordy there were a lot of nipples here. Presumably that's Willow's lingerie training, but it's probably time to move on to linings. As the Duchess of Cambridge can attest, nipple exploitation generally ends up looking crass and old fashioned. It's particularly jarring when it's in a fashion show and perpetrated by a woman designer. Customers want to see stylish solutions to wearing filmy clothes - not more wardrobe malfunctions. There were some lovely items - orange and white batwing silk tunics included. They don't need FHM visual effects.
Maria Grachvogel's customer is a wafter too. But she would never flash her breasts. Grachvogel prides herself on slinky, bias cutting that's languid but flattering. Her lemon floor length, short sleeved fit and flared dress was a brazen call-out to the Duchess of Cambridge. Grachvogel has also fallen for Grecian pleating - and culottes. It takes a lot for these not to qualify as man repellers, and Grachvogel's were only partially successful. But her trousers are always winners.

Fyodor Golan, a partnership consisting of Fyodor Podgomy, a Latvian, and Golan Frydman, an Israeli, went for ruffles in a big way and pulled it off with a certain verve, then did their best to wreck everything with hideous hats that - you're not going to believe this - looked like nipple shields. Enough, everyone.