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Fashion East Spring/Summer 2018
As editors found themselves lost in the rich sights and sounds of London's Chinatown, Day Two of London Fashion Week began, bright and early, with one of the highlights of the international show season: the Fashion East show in the English capital. This non-profit initiative has a long tradition of having their fingers firmly on the pulse of radical fashion; nurturing the brightest of British designers and launching the fashion careers of Kim Jones, Jonathan Saunders, Gareth Pugh and more. And the current three designers under Fashion East's representation do not disappoint, as the Spring/Summer 2018 showing is its best season yet.
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Matty Bovan
In his third show with the support of Fashion East, York-based Central Saint Martins MA graduate Matty Bovan continues to subvert traditional preconceptions of good and bad taste. Bovan's signature lovingly-handmade clashing knits and woven textiles were worn by the modelling industry's freshest darlings — as Edie Campbell, Georgia May Jagger and Winnie Harlow all walked for the designer's Spring/Summer 2018 collection earlier today.
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ASAI
Another fellow Central Saint Martins graduate, British-born Chinese and Vietnamese designer A Sai Ta, was personally headhunted by Kanye West to work at Yeezy — and a stint at The Row — a year into his Masters course before eventually returning to London to launch his eponymous label ASAI. Constantly exploring the subtle nuances that make up his colourful heritage as a first-generation Londoner, Ta's current Spring/Summer 2018 collection defies conventional logic. As Asian stereotypes are confronted, nunchucks get turned into unlikely handbags and what is seemingly granny's heirloom jade bangles finding new life as playful precious stone handcuffs.
Supriya Lele
When Asian-British designer Supriya Lele went to visit her family in India last year, she did not expect to walk right into the embrace of an epiphany. Lele, who cites her childhood interest in art, architecture , photography and fashion, presented her Spring/Summer 2018 collection today by looking to her Indian roots. Her collection features bright sari-inspired plastic, hand-printed pencil skirts that start out as a brilliant indigo before finding new life in vibrant reds, and a check print on mesh — inspired by the sweat clothes that Indian men carry.
Gareth Pugh Spring/Summer 2018
Congratulations were in order at the premiere of Gareth Pugh's latest Spring/Summer 2018 film; as news of the Sunderland-born English designer marrying his creative right hand man, Carson McColl, reached the ears of the sartorial set today — a perfect distraction from the chaos that unfolded outside the British Film Institute where the film was shown. Moods were instantly lifted and guests were ready to embark on yet another weird and wonderful journey into the mind of a gentle fashion genius.
Directed by photographer and film-maker Nick Knight, and created in collaboration with the artist Olivier de Sagazan and choreographer Wayne McGregor, the film was an anarchic, mesmerising tour-de-force — as preconceived notions of beauty and barbarism are at constant epic battle.
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Nicopanda Spring/Summer 2018
In his debut at London Fashion Week, Creative Director Nicola Formichetti schooled us in the different tribes teenagers find themselves falling into and out of during high school for Nicopanda's Spring/Summer 2018 collection. The half Italian and Japanese Formichetti, who is also a close collaborator of Lady Gaga and Brooke Candy presented us with tracksuits, "Team N.F." varsity motifs, and frothy box-pleated hot pink and lilac tulle dresses that are fit for a prom queen, or king. Because in the non-gendered eclecticism of the Nicopanda community, the rules of convention don't apply here — as boys wear pink and girls wear blue!
By Adriel Chiun