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Listening every month to young aspiring designers and brands at London Fashion Network talk about the difficulty in getting buyers to see their range and sell through it was great to see the launch of two new shows in London.
Label is the new off shoot of Pure the very well established womenswear show which dovetailed nicely with Spirit the more directional side of Pure. Spirit has always welcomed fledgling designers/ brands and allowed them to exhibit at a big show but retain their own individuality as some shows seem to drown out the exhibitors.
London hasn’t up to now had a solo menswear show for a long time so the launch of Stitch at Old Billingsgate Hall was a very inspired & a brave move. We had a very lively and well attended LFN event and it was great to see everyone talking so positively about the coming season and see brands willing to put down money on a stand to back Stitch.
When London Fashion Week hits town the media hype is incredible with worldwide coverage spotlighting the talent on the tents at Somerset House with huge coverage of Anna Wintour attending last season but the leap from one end of town to another for a brand or designer is huge in terms of investment and talent.
Wintour is seen as a “power broker” in the US for fledgling designers getting them noticed so I often wonder why there is not more coverage of all the new emerging talent in the UK and should we not have more consumer coverage of all this talent and effort battling away at Stitch and Pure and someone like Wintour giving them a voice to a wider world?
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From The Fashion Network
Based in Manchester & London, The fashion network is a business networking service that creates and develops business opportunities to the fashion, apparel and creative industries across the UK.
Readers' comments (2)
Brianna Karp | 25 February 2010 6:30 pm
This is a great idea; I do think Anna Wintour should be a power broker for emerging talent in the UK!
Ms. Smith is clearly quite a talented and thoughtful rising star to watch out for in the retail world - I've had the good fortune to glimpse her before in Drapers and am sure she will go far.
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Elena Garcia | 25 February 2010 7:17 pm
I agree with Alice completely. From a new designer's point of view, London is a tough place to exhibit. There seems to be a lot of press coverage, but where do the buyers go? I am told a lot of them go straight to Paris from New York, because of the overlapping of the fashion weeks. I don't know what can be done to get buyers to commit to London. Personally, it is cheaper for me to show in New York and Paris than to show at shows like Pure. Everyone seems to think that London is the place where the talent is, but no one commits to it. Until the buyers take London seriously and endeavour to support new designers it will be very very difficult for new designers to exhibit at London.
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