Londoners Magazine Glow with the flow
By Chloe Batt • Mar 12th, 2008 • Category: Fashion
Chloe Batt assesses some spring 2008 catwalk shows, and finds they are fashion-a-glow-glow.
From Camden to Brixton a sartorial revolution is sweeping the capital.
Neon is back and it’s shoving aside the muted tones of yester-season and draping itself around the bodies of the capital’s fashionistas.
Whatever happened to the English rose palette of pastel hues? Suddenly we’ve gone all nu-rave.
London girls are eschewing their wardrobes of preppy grey, understated navy and slimming black for a less sensible collection of hot pinks, bright yellows, electric blues and letterbox red.
The spring 2008 fashion shows in Paris, New York and London were awash with a kaleidoscope of colours. Shades of yellow from canary to lemon were on display from Andrew Gn to Sonia Rykiel to Roksanda Ilincic.
Even Ralph Lauren, the arbiter of preppy, ventured into sunshine territory with his womenswear. Chloé showed shift dresses splattered with crayon box colours.
Rich hues festooned the catwalks, from fuchsia at Jill Sander to deep purple at Versace.
And the palette of bright neon is spilling onto the high street.
At Topshop, colour-hungry shoppers are snapping up a spectrum of dresses, tops, skirts and hoodies in tangerine, magenta and coral.
The girls who once sang the praises of understated elegance are now flocking to American Apparel - the store largely responsible for instilling neon into the capital’s fashion consciousness. Its brightly coloured sweaters, tees and dresses have become ubiquitous among the young and fashionable.
A girl who might a few months ago have bought her party outfit at Whistles will now choose an American Apparel mustard-yellow racer-back dress or a lime-green tube dress to wear on a night out.
We once worried about how flattering leggings were in black. Now we’re wearing them in electric blue, purple and red lamé.
We used to want to look like Kate Moss, earnestly scouring pictures of her boyishly cut clothes, waistcoats and jeans. Now we want to look like Agyness Deyn. We want to wear Henry Holland’s garishly bright, slogan-emblazoned T-shirts and Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
Spring is nearly here and Londoners are brightening up.
But we better just enjoy the lamé leggings while they last. Come autumn, we’ll be back to black.
Photos courtesy of American Apparel
Chloe Batt is an elegant individual. She likes fashion, high art and complicated literature, and provides much of our most intricately gathered copy.
Favourite place in London: The National Portrait Gallery.
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