Sometimes struggling to shine against its prestigious neighbours in Paris and Milan, London Fashion Week was given a spotlight for its launch on Thursday with an electric performance by summer star Charli XCX, at an evening event at the low-cost ready-to-wear giant H&M.
For this event, “the most coveted” of the fashion week according to the British media, the Swedish fast fashion brand transformed a sports stadium in east London into a gigantic club, and offered the presence of the British singer Charli XCX, two days before the launch of her sold-out world tour.
H&M unveiled its fall/winter 24 collection with a lively contemporary dance choreography instead of a runway show, before giving way to a performance by the singer, whose hyper-pop music was born in London raves, in front of a wild audience.
The Swedish fast fashion brand had burst onto the calendar for Spring/Summer 2025 Fashion Week just a month before the start of the 48 shows, scheduled until Tuesday, and made the British pop star one of the faces of its collection.
Her hyper-pop album “Brat,” an ode to chaotic parties and a reflection of a generation’s questions, set the tone for the summer – renamed “brat summer” for the occasion. The neon green of its cover art adorned the outfits, ad campaigns and even the X-rated account of American candidate Kamala Harris.
In addition to the hand-picked guests, a handful of fans and customers of the brand had managed to get entry to this free evening.
It’s an “exciting” collaboration, said Caroline Rush, director of the British Fashion Council (BFC), which organises Fashion Week and is working to keep London on the fashion map, while star British designers such as Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham show in Paris.
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– “Second hand” mode –
By a coincidence of the calendar, the eBay platform and the charity Oxfam, in collaboration with the Lithuanian second-hand goods sales site Vinted, both organized fashion shows just before that of the fast-fashion giant, with only second-hand clothes.
In a room with tall concrete columns in the west of the capital, the models for the Oxfam show – the model Eunice Olumide and the actor George Robinson (“Sex Education”) – appeared in pieces rummaged through the NGO’s warehouses.
On the catwalk, flared plaid pants, velvet dresses, wool coats and leather bags, cherished treasures from another era.
“We want to go against preconceived ideas: second-hand fashion can be affordable and elegant,” said Marianne Gybels, from the Vinted website.
British designer and activist Katharine Hamnett, 77, closed the show with one of her famous T-shirts, bearing the message “No more fashion victims”, 40 years after her show at the first London Fashion Week in 1984.
The NGO Collective Fashion Justice points out in a recent report that only 3.39% of the 206 member brands of the British Fashion Council (BFC) have set a target to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Some fashion influencers have lamented on TikTok that the presence of the giant H&M among often independent brands is not accompanied by “real progress” in the quality of its clothes.
The world’s number two clothing company, which is trying to move upmarket in the face of aggressive competition from “ultra fast fashion” chains like Shein, recently assured that it was making efforts to “reduce its dependence on polyester”, a synthetic material derived from oil.
While the excitement surrounding the Swedish brand’s party has somewhat overshadowed the usual Fashion Week schedule, celebrities, buyers and influencers will hit the runways on Friday morning, with fashion veteran Paul Costelloe and hot young designers like Di Petsa and Bora Aksu.
In total, 72 designers, emerging or renowned talents such as JW Anderson, Richard Quinn, Erdem or the British house Burberry, will present their collections during this second edition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the event, an anniversary already celebrated in February during the Fall-Winter 2024-25 Fashion Week.
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