On September 19th, 2023, London Fashion Week ran their Spring/Summer 2024 collection. This will be a review of the designs shown on the runway. This is my personal opinion, and before I give my critiques I would like to congratulate all the designers who showed off designs at fashion week. The fashion world is very competitive and cut-throat, so this is a great achievement for all designers. I will be rating these designs on the “Sophi Style Scale”, which is my personal opinion of fashion, a 10 is a “this is the most stylish outfit I’ve ever seen, I want to buy 100 of them.” and a 1 would be “This looks like trash” all with respect to the designers.
These first photos are from ELLE, which presented images straight from the runway.
First up, is a floral dress from Burberry. It is a cute dress, with a black top with a halter neckline, but I do not like that the neckline crosses diagonally from the armpit to the clavicle, and even more so that it isn’t symmetrical. I feel like also, I would feel very claustrophobic with how wide the high neckline is. Also, her shoes do not look like they go with that dress. I would have picked a red-orange pump to be cohesive with the bright red flowers on the skirt. But the dress does get points back for having the purse match the blue flowers of the skirt, but it could do more. All in all, I would give this Burberry look an 8/10 on the Sophi Style Scale.
The next two photos are from CNN, which included many runway looks.
Next is a look from designer HARRI. What on earth is going on here? It appears that the models are wearing big inflated latex pillow pants. Yet it also seems that the outfit is also like overalls? The runway models are in a wrestling style kind of hug, and I’m not sure if you have to wear this design with another person, or if you can wear it by itself. It genuinely looks absolutely ridiculous. I very much doubt it would be comfortable to wear. Also, the shoes, there are none. That is very much a problem. I don’t want to walk outside in only socks, then they get wet, then I’m stuck in balloon pants with soggy socks. I would give this look a -2/10 on the Sophi Style Scale.
The last and final look for this review is from designer Molly Goddard. When I see this dress, I think it looks like a muslin. A muslin is a type of dress you make before you use the actual fabric for the dress. Usually you use these to make sure the idea of the dress looks good before you make the dress again with the real (and more expensive) fabric. This design looks like it’s unfinished, and was rushed so it could get to the runway on time. I do not like how the boning of the dress is visible, and the pieces of tool, which are only on the hips of the dress, look messy. I would give this dress a 1/10 on the Sophi Style Scale.
Reading the article on CNN, they say “Each entirely sequinned piece was complimented by a diverse range of models who injected the fantasy with their own personality.” (Leah Dolan and Nicole Mowbray, Sept. 20) which they are claiming that the London Fashion Week was being diverse, but looking at all the photos of the models there, yes there was racial diversity with many beautiful models walking down the runway, but the size diversity was slim to none. High fashion runways should have a wider collection of body sizes shown on their runways, just to let the people know that fashion is for everyone. Not just a small size pool.
