London Fashion Week to spring into action

Faustine Steinmetz design. Photograph: Sanna Helen Berger

Spring Summer 2015 womenswear collections will be revealed at London Fashion Week in mid-September. Just as we slip back into coats and sweaters in preparation for autumn, designers are lifting spirits with their preamble to 2015.

Autumn Winter 2014 collections consisted of a sixties-by-way-of-2014 aesthetic, all miniskirts and gogo boots in textured contemporary fabrics. Seventies shades of browns and orange and nineties oversize knitwear also made for popular inspiration. Now, fashion aficionados await the next season eagerly, ready to discover what the mood will be for 2015, and which new designers will be making it into the foreground of British fashion.

Keen to make the most of a season’s commercial capacity (and with the optimism of Spring/Summer still a strong selling point), some designers have taken to creating pre-Spring Summer collections. Antipodium revealed their Resort 2015 collection (aka pre-Spring Summer) some months back, and used this opportunity to debut the work of new Head of Design Daniel Mcilwraith. The tangerine tones of their AW14 collections faded into peachy hues for Resort 2015. Autumn’s miniskirt lengths were adopted for shirt-dresses, while light knits and printed silk shirts brought renewed energy in tones such as baby blue and kiwi green.

Utilising the practical needs of the summer, London Fashion Week will for the first time have a dedicated area of the Designer Showrooms for emerging swimwear and lingerie designers. The British Fashion Council will host a pop-up showroom, exhibiting collections by NEWGEN designers – this annual talent identification scheme, sponsored by Topshop, gives emerging designers financial support and an opportunity to gain recognition and exhibit at London Fashion Week.

For SS15 a number of East London designers have been given NEWGEN status including denim stalwarts Marques Almeida and new kids Faustine Steinmetz. The latter is an innovative denim and read-to-wear brand working out of a studio in East London where the team spin, dye and weave their own fabrics, producing exquisite handmade and handwoven pieces. This will be Faustine Steinmetz’s debut at London Fashion Week and the Parisian designer has taken inspiration from the mega couturiers of her birth place. Analysing the high-end luxury industry, and its shift towards mass consumerism, seems fitting coming from a brand that believes in the bespoke and handmade.

East London designer Phoebe English will be returning to London Fashion Week to present her take on Spring Summer 15. Of what to expect from the collection, English says: ‘The SS15 collection has elements of both tailoring and broken forms, and includes print collaborations with Dalston-based illustrator and print designer Helen Bullock.’

Autumn is all about new beginnings and looking forward. London Fashion Week SS15 with its new talent, and new mood, is set to do just that.