Russian view on English Fashion
Article by Ksenia Lukina
Forget everything you knew about porridge*, five o’ clocks and conservativeness. A tourist guide or excursion can tell you nothing about the spirit of this city. This is the thing you can only feel while being on the streets. Here these streets are not the simple combinations of buildings and roads, but the modern fashion and source of inspiration.
They don’t feel like any other European streets, because England is…different, England is on an island and everything here is detached from the “European standards”. Perhaps the reason is historical or geographical or may be the air here is different, yet the art of English designers is absolutely distinct from the classy Italians and French. And there is something mysterious in this gloomy and bizarre English style…
If you really love the city, you start to gradually change under its influence, without even realizing it. After a year of living in London, more and more I see a typical English girl in the mirror. It means that feeling comfortable is more important than looking perfect. It means that even loose clothes can be feminine. It means that one vivid piece in the outfit ‘in French style” is not me. After all, I’m on the island of England.
What is more, the streets here are always in a state of riot. I mean the riot of individuality, which is perhaps sometimes too eccentric. People here dress in their special style, which they proudly demonstrate on the streets in the form of worn tights, combinations of winter hat and summer sandals, incredible hairstyles or their absolute absence. However, everything they do, they do with some unique charm, which you can only inherit from your English parents or, like me, copy from the passersby you unconsciously admire.
How did all this come about?
Probably in the epoch of the famous and rebellious English punk. It’s no coincidence that Vivien Westwood, one of the world’s greatest designers, started her career in the 70s, when punks were all over the streets. She was actually inspired by them. And even today lady Westwood remains rebellious: complicated shapes of women’s dresses, massive chains and skyscraping heels.
Let’s take as an example her last advertising campaign: the model dressed in expensive Westwood clothes sitting on nothing else but a huge litter bin in a typical London dirty yard. That is shocking, yet in these pictures is the real modern England. People here literally sit wherever they want to. Not on the litter tanks, of course, but on the road, lawn and on the underground platform. That’s all right, that’s another riot and also not without its own unique charm.
It would be unfair to finish here and state that only rebellious sub cultures make up the English style. Here every anarchist somewhere deep in his soul is still conservative and loves old England. This culture shows itself in an English person, starting with the way they treat people (they start to hysterically apologize after you step on their foot) and finishing with their clothes style.
Case in point: men’s trousers by Westwood – inspired by the British tradition tailoring. Then, sharp shoulders of McDonald’s dresses – are definitely avangard, yet remind me of 19-th century royal dresses. Finally, the wild and mysterious Alexander McQueen. His collections feel like ancient English gothic culture, with its cold grey cathedrals and tails of brothers Grimm. However, the designer’s art is (again!) very rebellious.
Only an English fashion designer, like McQueen, could dress women in brutal, bizarre and outrageous costumes and still leave her feminine. Maybe, that is one of the numerous secrets of English style. The intriguing thing is that not just masters of fashion like McQueen, Richmond, Westwood and Galliano are able to solve this puzzle, but so are ordinary people. And this raises an interesting question: who is inspired by whom: the streets by the great designers or the great designers by the streets…?
In the glossy literature about English fashion you can find the statement that people’s bright and expressive appearance is their protest against foggy, rainy and cloudy weather. People just want to brighten the streets they where born in….
And we need more than porridge to do that.
