Is London Fashion Week really back?

The Glossy Podcast

Danny Parisi and Zofia Zviglinska analyze the recent London Fashion Week, noting a significant increase in international buyer attendance. T

Key takeaways

• International buyer attendance rose 41% during the September London Fashion Week sessions.
• Christopher Kane has been appointed Creative Director for Mulberry to drive ready-to-wear sales.

Main topics

• London Fashion Week trends
• Mulberry brand turnaround

Notable quotes

Everything's worth it for fashion.

Conclusion

The episode highlights a pivotal moment for London fashion as it balan

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) Hello and welcome back to the Glossy Podcast. Speaker 1 (0:07) I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi, and I'm here with our international reporter Zofia Zviglinska. Hello, Zofia. How are you? Speaker 2 (0:15) Yeah, very good. Thank you. Speaker 1 (0:17) Thank you for being here. We covered New York Fashion Week last week, but this week we're talking all about London Fashion Week, which ran from September 17th to September 21st. I know you were out and about running to a lot of shows, getting sick from it, which is a classic. fashion reporter experience to run around Fashion Week and then immediately become ill afterwards. It's happened to me many times. How was it? How are you feeling? Speaker 2 (0:43) Yeah, I mean, it was really good. Obviously, we had a lot of big moves in London this season. And I think, you know, considering the spring-summer is always kind of a little bit more interesting in terms of the collections, I think there was a good kind of... divisive take on a lot of the designers. I think with the fact that there was quite a few kind of debuts or returns, it made for a more interesting and kind of varied assortment to the designers that usually show. Because I think there's a lot of kind of returning names in London. And it can feel a little bit stale. They all have very kind of singular identities and styles. So it was a nice change. Speaker 1 (1:23) Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I also feel like from my perspective over here in New York is that London has a lot of mainstays and a lot of stuff that's very traditional, but I do feel like there's a good amount of exciting emerging designers, which we've talked about in previous podcast episodes. But I was not there and you were, so I'm going to let you take the lead on giving your take on London Fashion Week. But really quick, I wanted to talk just for a second about an update on something we talked about on the New York Fashion Week episode last week, which is Stephen Kolb, the president of the CFDA. many people probably heard at this point, was videotaped in a violent altercation with PETA protesters at the Kos show. It kind of overshadowed a lot of other stuff at New York Fashion Week. Unfortunately, he issued an apology and then he was on leave. And I think... Jill and I said, seems likely that he's probably not going to come back. And that is now official between last week and now. He did resign from the CFDA and they haven't named a replacement yet. He had talked about maybe retiring soon. Anyway, it's unfortunate that this is kind of his, you know, how he went out. But yeah, I just wanted to say, since we talked about it last week, that that that was confirmed. He did leave the CFDA and next season there will. presumably be a new president, a new CEO of the organization. Were there any violent altercations at London Fashion Week? Did you see anybody covering anyone's mouth or shoving them against a wall? Speaker 2 (2:49) No. And to be honest, I think that, you know, considering that cost-pay apparent H &M also showed at London Fashion Week this season, they were very restrained in terms of how they handle the protesters, because obviously Peter took the opportunity to. have a couple of protesters actually come to the H &M runway in Olympia. There was three protesters in total who came onto the runway sporting the signs, and they were very gently escorted out by security. I think that there may have been more, but from what I saw by some of the people kind of running around, I think H &M stepped in and kind of didn't let anyone else kind of come close to the catwalk after the third one. Speaker 1 (3:33) Well, that's probably good that they were being very cautious about that. Yeah. So let's get into more with London Fashion Week. I know there were some big shows. Alexander McQueen made the big comeback. Christopher Kane had his first show at Mulberry, a couple others. Where do you want to start? Which one do you want to talk about first? Speaker 2 (3:53) Yeah, I think it'd be good to talk a little bit about maybe just. the season in general just to introduce it and then we could maybe start with Mulberry. Obviously, you mentioned McQueen, Christopher Kane showed his first kind of Mulberry collection, but there was also a number of kind of more corporate brands on the runway. So eBay was back with its endless runway. M &S staged its first kind of official runway show where everything was under 50 pounds. So I think it was under $67, which I think is quite unique. And then Burberry obviously closed the week with a collaboration with artist Celia Birtwell. I got some kind of... Info from the British Fashion Council kind of after London Fashion Week wrapped in terms of how popular it has been with international visitors, which has been a little bit of a concern in the past, said that accredited buyer attendance rose 19 % from last September and international buyer attendance rose 41%. I think considering how many of the brands in London kind of rely on international spend, you know, to buy up some of their items, we've seen, you know, Connor Ives, who was... initially showing in London for many, many seasons, showing in New York this season. I think that's also got to do with the fact that probably a lot of his customer base is based over there. So I think that's been a really encouraging sign for designers. But obviously the BFC hasn't actually given actual buyer numbers, so who's ordering what, or said whether those visits have actually led to any orders yet. I still think there's a little bit of a gap, as I said at the beginning, between... the people who kind of go into the runway rooms and actually watch the collections and then how those collections are received afterwards online. Usually the photos and things get scrutinized a lot more. then what happens kind of in the rooms, you get a lot of kind of glorification of the designers, which I guess is to be expected considering all of the relationships that happen at Fashion Week and how difficult those are to be maintained. But it feels particularly kind of present with London. And I think that's something to keep in mind reading some of these reviews this time around. Speaker 1 (6:03) Yeah, definitely. Two things. I totally agree that being at a show can give a very different experience than looking at the photos later. I mentioned this last week, but Jill and I both went to the Retrofet show and it was in this big, beautiful ballroom and they had martinis and cigarettes and like the music was loud. I was like, I thought it was such a cool vibe. And then later I was looking at the clothes and I was like, yeah, you know, they're pretty cool. But it was definitely in the moment it felt very cool. But yeah, the... London Fashion Week feeling bigger. Like I kind of felt the same way with New York Fashion Week. It was exciting. There were big shows. There were big names there. The clothes were cool. There was drama and controversy. It's interesting to see that London Fashion Week also kind of felt a little bigger and had big name shows and that the numbers back that up too. So where did you say you want to start? Mulberry? Speaker 2 (6:55) Mulberry, yeah, I think that's the biggest kind of showcase for the season. Also one of those brands, I think alongside Burberry is most well known in the UK. Maybe like Aquascutton, but I don't even know what's happening with them these days. I think there's a couple of brands that are very quintessentially British. And they also have had a bit of a moment, you know, in the last 20 years. And I think Mulberry is one of them. So this season, Christopher Kane, who's a very well-known designer and someone who had his own label until 2023, he's actually joined as the creative director for Mulberry. And I think Mulberry, you know, had a moment, I'd say like 10 or 15 years ago, where everyone wanted a baseball bag or an Alexa bag. And I feel like they've fallen off a little bit. They had some interesting collaborations with Regina Pio. I think there was some interesting kind of concepts that they had around their campaigns, but they never really took control of their ready-to-wear. And it seems like this time round, it's kind of a big focus for them this season. Obviously, they've also got a new-ish CEO, Andrea Baldo, who's formerly of Gani. And obviously, he did a massive turnaround with Gani, kind of brought them up to one of the biggest brands coming out of Europe. He's kind of brought in a focus on full price bags. We've seen kind of the full price selling conversation happening across many brands in the luxury space. And obviously a big focus on British craft as well, according to the earnings. Just unlike revenue bits, they arose 4 % to $167 million in the last financial year. And they've narrowed some of their losses as well. Sales were up this quarter as well. So Kane