Life of the party - London Fashion Week Daily

2 News London fashion week the daily Sunday 20 February 2011LFW The Daily CreditsEditorCat CallenderDeputy Editor & Chief Sub EditorMarion JonesArt Director & DesignerBianca WendtManaging EditorJANE MONEYDeputy Chief Sub EditorFiona RussellSub EditorsMichelle Margherita,kirsty hislop, robin wilksDesignerscatherine nippe, emma williams,thomas elliotTReportersDavid Hayes, Julia Robson,Heath Brown, marion hume,susanna lauBeauty Correspondentsannabel meggeson, Jess HoganGuest ContributorsLinda Grant, emma lofstrom,philippa williamsStaff PhotographersAnna Bauer, Marcus Dawes,Shaniqwa JarvisDistribution ManagerFran Weber-NewthProduction ManagerCAROLYN MOTTBlog ReporterEMILY FLEURIOTBlog Commissioning Editoryasmin cokeEditorial Assistantsalison potter, brooke rutherfordRunnersamy maloney, giverney edwardsWebsite DesignerWolfram WiednerBFC Marketing ManagerClara MercerPrinted byThe Guardian Print CentrePublished byJENNY DYSON & CAT CALLENDERAT JEnny & The Cat LtdThanks toThe British Fashion CouncilSomerset HouseH&M for the stYLISH supportM&S for the fashionABLE foodMercedes-Benz for the wit-woo wheelsFor advertising enquiries,email cat@lfwdaily.comlive catwalk illustration At daksBy Julie VerhoevenThe daily shopIt may be A/W on the catwalks,but it’s just turned S/S in store.Here’s our pick of the pack.Compiled by Victoria Bain,sunglasses, £12Asos (asos.com)t-shirt, £55Ann-Sofie Back for Topshop(topshop.com)“clipper” holdall, £189Mulberry (mulberry.com)bracelet, £12Red Herring at Debenhams(debenhams.com)RockstarTodd Lynn has one of the most respectedfashion signatures in London. The tailoringso sharp it could slice through ice; the androgynythat invites a swagger; the sensibility that ispure rock’n’roll. He also now has two seasonsof financial support and mentoring, courtesy ofthe BFC’s Fashion Forward award.“The money’s always useful, but there is alsomentoring that will really help,” says Lynn of theCoutts & Co-sponsored package supported by theLondon Development Agency. “It’s such a creative,amazing journey to do this, but in reality if you don’thave a business sense it won’t get you so far.”It is this issue that Fashion Forward seeksto address, and Canadian Lynn knows well howsuch success confounded many of London’sdesigners for years. Coutts has a long traditionof supporting creative entrepreneurs, and 2011is its second year sponsoring Fashion Forward.Holding out a hand to Lynn is perfectly timed.Here is a label with a clear developing vision,exquisite execution and stealth wearability.“Women who like fashion don’t feel the needto conform,” says Lynn. “These are people I knowand work with. My clothes are fierce, but protective,too.” Cue jackets of butter-soft leather armour,zipped dresses that reveal the silhouette but notthe skin, wool trousers that declare any wearertall and slim, cutting-edge clothes designed“to look good on all people, not just models”.And tomorrow, it’s Lynn’s A/W 11 show. It’s all inthe detail. “All the elements are there,” he says. “It’swhat I’m adding: the Enlightenment, a bitof colour. And it’s winter, it’s leather and fur – furthat’s been farmed properly. I really care about that.”And, of course, there’s rock’n’roll. “I can siton my own in the studio, listening to music, andI can escape,” says Lynn. “I can see things.”Todd Lynn is showing tomorrow at 3pm in WC2BESPOKE FEATUREFashion means businessReport by Julia RobsonBritish fashion is having a “eureka”moment, waking up to ways toharness the endless talent andcreativity it’s famous for. What’s tostop venture capitalists (rememberthem?) pitching up in London andeyeing up a young fashion brand?While creativity is paramount,emerging designers are realising theimportance of building a business.“People often say that fashion is oneof our most important creativeindustries,” said BFC ambassadorSamantha Cameron (below withBFC Chairman Harold Tillman),Four seasons in one dayReport by Heath BrownGlobal warming has hit the catwalksof London, as Spring/Summerstaples creep into collections forA/W 11. Soft billowing silks, bareshoulder lines, hot tribal looksand fresh nautical references – itlooks like designers are predictinga milder spell.Sass & Bide ignored the snowsof late and transported us tosunnier climes. Ikat prints fromAfrica, Balinese references and hotMediterranean colours are morethan enough to keep us warm.Daks’ new collection went a littleflying the flag in Mulberry. “They’rewrong – it’s one of our mostimportant industries, full stop.”(True, last year, British fashioncontributed £21 billion to UK PLC.)Educating designers in businessis the point of initiatives such as theBFC/Vogue Fashion Fund. Tillmanpoints out that the fund’s currentrecipient, Christopher Kane, won onhis business plan as well as hisdesigns. “If we want more people toinvest in fashion, we have to instil asound business sense in our designers.”Photography by Marcus Dawesnautical-but-nice with precise navyand-whiteoutfits that were moreCowes Week than Bonfire Night,and Caroline Charles decided a dayat the races would be far moreinspiring than a cosy Christmas.Daisy-print red chiffon at BettyJackson, halternecks and hot pantsat Aminaka Wilmont, and holidaywhitepalazzo pants with silky printsat Maria Grachvogel all emphasisedthe fact that designers will not bedictated to by the weather. It’s a caseof designing a wardrobe for allseasons, and creating investmentbuys for any time of the year.dress, £65Monsoon Fusion (0844 811 0068)shorts, £115Jaeger London (0845 051 0063)fan, £2.50V&A (vandashop.com)maxi skirt, £95Whistles (whistles.co.uk)“roberta” wedges, £218Anthropologie (anthropologie.co.uk)

www.lfwdaily.com Designer Profile 7The A teamLife’s a dog sometimes for Antonio Berardi – constantly dashing between London and Milan, where he runs his labelwith the aid of a crack team. But, however busy he is, Berardi will always find time to make a girl feel specialWords by Tamsin BlanchardPhotography by Jonathan Frantinitemperleylondon isyears old andlooking prettierthan every 1pm this afternoon, AntonioBerardi and his team will be atthe end of the twice-yearlymarathon of fittings that pre-empthis catwalk shows. For the pastfive days, the designer (picturedimmediate right with his team)has worked from a temporarymakeshift studio in Shoreditch, installing not onlyhis close-knit team of designers and pattern cutters,but also the two skilled seamstresses from the atelierhe uses for his thriving business of special orders,celebrity one-offs and wedding dresses.Based in Milan, Berardi brings his entire studio toLondon to literally unpick jackets and dresses at theseams and then remake them – he likes every outfit tolook as though it were tailor-made for each model.“Even a girl who is doing many shows a day, when theycome in and you fit something to them, they feel it’sfor them and it makes them feel special. She gives100 per cent, simply because you’ve taken the time.It’s not just, ‘You wear this and you wear that.’”This is typical of Berardi. It’s late January andthe designer is talking to me by phone from the Milanstudio, where he is working on the embroidery for hisAutumn/Winter 2011 collection. Berardi is brimmingwith charm and respect for the people he works with,and it’s no surprise that people push the gondola outfor him– they get things done, even if those thingsappear impossible, which they often do. “Every tailoror pattern cutter has his methods, but you have tochallenge those methods or you end up never goingforward,” says Berardi. “Sometimes you need a touchof madness and to try something they say will neverwork, but you end up with something more fabulousthan you had imagined in the first place. If you don’ttry, you’re never going to know if it works or not. I dopush people. Everyone’s learning the process – I don’tknow everything. I think people need to be stimulated.”The son of Sicilian immigrants, Antonio Berardiwas born in Grantham on 21 December 1968,a birthday he shares with his long-term creativeconspirator, Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou. Theybegan working together in 1995. Back then, he wasriding high on the cool crest of a London wave, afterhis first collection, shown fresh from Central SaintMartins, saw Kylie Minogue and his bad-girl museMichele Hicks modelling for him. Shoes by ManoloBlahnik (who is working with Berardi again forA/W 11) added that final flourish.The day before our conversation, Neophitou-Apostolou had been “working her magic”, as Berardiputs it, on the lookbook for the Pre-Fall collection.Berardi confesses he tends to get blinded by acollection after working on it for so long, and Sophia“Sometimes you needa touch of madness andto try something theysay will never work”edits it and picks out pieces that give it a newdirection. “It’s never what I would expect and that’swhat I love about the relationship – I can stop midsentenceand she can carry on. We have this synergy.At the same time, it’s nice when we can surprise eachother. It’s never staid; it always feels like the first time.Working with Sophia can only be described as thestory of a marriage. The weird thing is, we are bothSagittarians, both born on the same day. There’s aweird yin-and-yang thing about it.”In 1999, Berardi designed Victoria Beckham’swedding-party dress and a matching suit – all inpurple – for David (and another for Brooklyn).Victoria has been a long-term and loyal client eversince. When I suggest that Ms Beckham must havelearned a few things from her fittings with him overthe years, he simply says, “She knows what works forher and she knows what she likes. I don’t think she’sever been told what to wear. It shows in what she does,which is extremely successful, and women relate toit because she knows what she is talking about.”Special orders and red-carpet dresses havebecome an important part of Berardi’s business overthe years, to the extent that he now produces aseparate – and often totally different – lookbook forcelebrity stylists. “Celebrities can choose anythingthey like and if they choose you, it gives you thatwow factor – it means you are on somebody’s radarsomewhere.” And because his is still a relatively smalloutfit, Berardi is able to make things on request atshort notice. “They might say, ‘Can you make it forthis event in this colour?’”The A-list laps up his designs – his dresses havebeen worn by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, KateBeckinsale, Jessica Alba, Ashley Greene, JulianneMoore and Beyoncé. “When you work with a client,you want them to go away and say, ‘Oh my God, it’s anevening dress made for me!’ If you have the possibilityto make it the best it can possibly be, then why not?Hopefully, everything fits perfectly; I scrutinise thata lot.” So when Dannii Minogue, not long after givingbirth to her son, Ethan, wore a black velvet zip-frontdress on The X Factor in October, she felt totallypulled in and confident. And recently, at the LApremiere of Love and Other Drugs, Anne Hathaway’swhite lace-panel dress from Berardi’s Resortcollection looked as if it had been made just for her.With his celebrity clients, special orders and twopre-collections a year, Berardi rarely stops. “Becausethe delivery is so early, the pre-collection is the thingright now, as people have constant stuff to change overin the stores,” he says. In fact, the Pre-Fall and Resortcollections now provide between 50 and 70 per cent ofthe company’s overall revenue. Holli Rogers, BuyingDirector at net-a-porter.com, started buying Berardifor Pre-Fall 10. “His collection quickly gained a loyal“A jacket is the REAL testof a designer. If it looksamazing on-hanger, itcan only look better on”following,” she says. “There is a particular glamour,polish and sophistication to his clothes. The womanwho buys Berardi looks to him for beautifully finished,elegant pieces, which create the most stunning andflattering lines when worn. Once on, they become ashortcut to sleek, modern style.” For Rogers, Berardi’sstand-out S/S 11 piece is “a fabulous maxi-dress – aconfection of ballet-slipper-pink chiffon covered infabric flowers. I can’t wait for it to arrive.”Berardi is a rare beast in the fashion world, in thathis company is self-financed. This is liberating interms of not having anyone to answer to, but it alsomeans the designer can never switch off. “It is kindof amazing,” he says of his situation. “There is a pridein that and a love for it because it’s yours, but it wouldalso be nice for someone else one day to have thatheadache and not just me!”Owning his company has allowed Berardi to keepa careful eye on his production needs – the collectionis rigorously considered in terms of what is needed forthe catwalk, what is needed for the buyers, what thecustomer herself needs and wants, and also how thefabrics are used. “I’ve worked for companies wherethey’ve bought 150 fabrics in endless colours and notused three-quarters of it,” he says. “There is no need.We are frugal but in a good way. If you have to makedo, you can still do amazing things with nothing. Ifsomeone else is throwing money at you, it’s very easyto waste their money. When you account for everypenny, it’s a more interesting way of working it out.There is no need to be wasteful. It’s about how you canachieve the best without spending money willy-nilly.”For A/W 11, the collection is an evolution ofa honed-down aesthetic that Berardi started inthe pre-collection – and the focus is on the jacket.“A jacket is the real test of a designer,” he says.“If it looks amazing on-hanger, if it looks like it hasa body in it, it can only look better once it’s on.A jacket is a staple.” The jacket in question is“extremely” body-con and tailored – qualitiesBerardi excels at, using traditional horsehair tailoringtechniques that are also applied to dresses and coats.“Some jackets caress the body but they don’t close,”he says of this season’s collection. Colours are inevery shade of grey, milk and navy, with sharp accentsof orange and lime. And there are some interestingembellishments of masculine suiting and Shetlandknits, which have been given a feminine Berarditwist using punching, embroidery and studding.“It’s not necessarily anything you’ve ever seenbefore,” he says. “I don’t use embroidery just forthe sake of it – it has to be new.”Chances are, as you read this, the catwalk will beempty, all the hard work over: the pulling apart at theseams, the re-sewing, the finishing and steaming, themodel dramas, the immaculate shoes. The clothes willbe bagged up and on their way back to Milan. But therewon’t be much time for Berardi to catch his breath.“It’s a full-time job now,” he says. “It didn’t used to be.”In the future, he hopes to move to London, but rightnow work pulls him to Milan. “Living in London is adream. I was spending five days a week in Italy – that’swhy I moved here. But as things get into place, I hopeto move back. It’s where I started. It’s home.”Antonio Berardi is showing his A/W 11 collectiontoday at 1pm in EC2. Stockists: Harrods,Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, brownsfashion.com,matchesfashion.com, net-a-porter.comTamsin Blanchard is Style Director of theTelegraph MagazineBESPOKE FEATUREtemperleylondon.comFunny what positions this Swan Lake trend can get you into. But while we’re here,channelling that inner Odette/Odile, we know the ballet-shoe-ribbon effect of thesedaintiest of tights is giving legs the perfect fashion spin.Pretty Dazzling tights, £8,facebook.com/prettypollyCue applause for Pretty Polly