#LFW: It's time to give fashion all the attention

That masterpiece below dear readers, is my visual interpretation of London Fashion Week. Yes, it finished over a week ago and therefore I am six centuries late writing this. But I think I just needed some time to reflect, and to question, what on earth does fashion week have to do with fashion anymore? I am not the first to say it, and nor will I be the last.

'Look at me.' Clare Green, 2013

Suzy Menkes gave some excellent insight into this matter in her blog post "The Circus of Fashion", which she wrote for The New York Sunday Times Style Magazine - "Today, the people outside fashion shows are more like peacocks than crows. They pose and preen, in their multipatterned dresses, spidery legs balanced on club-sandwich platform shoes, or in thigh-high boots under sculptured coats blooming with flat flowers." Showing up the multitude of bloggers, posers and amateur fashionistas who mill around outside of the shows, she highlights that "the fuss around the shows now seems as important as what goes on inside the carefully guarded tents."

But inside those carefully guarded tents another parade is occurring, and one which I find even more absurd than the one going on outside. This avid fascination with the celebrities who attend the shows nowadays is nonsensical to me. It seems the collections now are defined not just by the clothes on the catwalk but by who attended, whereabouts they sat and what they wore.

Front row totty Pixie Lott with her happy handbag at Sass and Bide
Image: cosmopolitan.co.uk

Catwalk collections don't materialise without any effort. A ex colleague of mine, who is studying design, landed an internship (unpaid) within a major fashion house on the design team. The stories she shared with me at work were incredible. Looking back she says "it was incredibly stressful, but that felt mostly down to lack of organisation and things changing constantly." On top of that, there seemed to be no end to the working day. "I started at around 10am, and would finish anywhere between 8:30/9pm and 2am, though it was later more often than not."

I am sure the celebrities who attend the shows have had their fair share of 15 hour days, but London Fashion Week needs to recognise more the people who have worked themselves to the bone creating the real entertainment.

The Saturdays just can't get enough at Julien MacDonald
Image: cosmopolitan.co.uk

One could argue that the media's fascination with celebrity attendees is just another new dimension to London Fashion Week, which in recent years has evolved into a vastly accessible occasion; shows streaming online, more high street brands showing collections and there's loads of opportunities for young fashion students to now get involved. My friend went onto say "loads of media coverage does go to celebrities, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing at all - certainly in the case of up and coming designers, having celebrity presence at your show can help no end with publicity which is crucial when you're starting out."

The matter at hand is a double edged sword, however fashion week is becoming renowned to be one big celebrity carnival. The pageant that goes on around the catwalk detracts much deserved attention from the real stars of the show - the design teams, designers and the clothes on the catwalk.