London Fashion Week day four: Hats off to Lulu Kennedy

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Sep 21, 2020

It felt a little like a repeat season in London this Sunday, with a series of largely digital displays where many designers actually repackaged collections they had shown in January or February. Often with impressive results, like at Palmer Harding and Liam Hodges. Though the stand-out moment of London Fashion Week was the latest installment of Lulu Kennedy’s joint show for emerging talent, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this month with a stand-out quartet.

 
Never has London’s reputation as the world’s best incubator of talent seemed so true. Post-lockdown, the London digital season felt like a hatchery, and its most important influence is talent seeker extraordinaire Kennedy.
 
Fashion East
More ideas and energy, vim and vigor in this group show by the latest young hopefuls mined by Kennedy. Cool street tailoring; racy cut-off silhouettes and bodycon brilliance from Maximilian Davis, a Wales Bonner alumni. Talk about raw talent.

Or take Goomheo of South Korea – Morris dancers encounter Satyricon cross dressers, shot from an ankle-high camera angle. Even better, Nensi Dojaka and some sensational see-through boudoir cool from this Albanian hopeful collaged onto sunset, time-lapse views of London, Paris and Tokyo. Or best of Saul Nash with a video named "Luas Flipside" – tracking shots on an English Channel cliff top featuring chopped-up technical, active sports gear for urban living. Be warned! Adidas or Nike need to hire Saul.
 
"Looking back over twenty years of helping London’s best designers is wild! I’m incredibly grateful I’ve been able to do what I love doing best. I wouldn’t change a thing," commented Kennedy, who can be justly proud of her unique role and contribution.

 
Palmer Harding clan council
All in the family at Palmer Harding, where designers Matthew Harding and Levi Palmer focused on their extended clans, shooting and reshooting their winter collection featuring exclusive and previously unseen styles on family members, in both the UK and the USA. 
 
From the UK, with several generations of Harding women, all the way to the extended Palmer network captured via zoom, including mother Nancy shot in her home town of Westphalia, Texas and his mentor Jan shot in downtown Dallas. Self-described as "Levi’s fashion fairy godmother" and dressed in a marvelous Imperial Roman purple coat, wandering among fantastic life-sized bronze statues of Texas longhorns. Telling, charming and ideal aesthetics from this thoughtful design duo.
 
Per Götesson keeps it short
A silent video largely just of a bald man, mostly undressed, sometimes wearing a crocheted mini dress, often with his head covered in crystals. Graphic collages reminiscent of Russian Constructivism, and the final tagline: "We have worked hard all our lives and now we have all these beautiful things." Even in a season of spare mini video fashion statements, this felt far too modest.
 

Emilio de la Morena musing on Lockdown
Emilio presented one of those videos that made one miss the giddy atmosphere of London. Entitled "5 Troubles," it had six figures dancing and gesticulating in graffiti-plastered underpasses, blocks of council flats or in urban parks. The clothes? Well, they were sort of an afterthought of monocolor stretch exercise gear. Not that much fashion news, but as a brand statement it rocked.
 
Liam Hodges’ Ciao Bella
This designer didn’t even bother presenting a new collection, instead he repackaged his last collection, called "Brave New World," and renamed it "Ciao Bello." The resulting video had lots of Italian food, from pizza to tortellini with pesto, and all sorts of folk drinking heavily. Then images of what looked like rooftop Milan and a shoot in Artifact, with sweatshirts roped into Joseph Beuys sculptures. Turned out these clubbing clothes looked pretty fierce and snappy, even if we had seen them all before.