London Fashion Week recap

By: Katrina Gross ~Staff Writer~

This year’s London Fashion Week (LFW) featured 71 designers, including veterans of the trade and new designers just breaking into the ever-changing fashion world.

With lines ranging from classic, minimalist fashion to new age avant-garde, designers did their best to create unique and dynamic lines of beautiful and meticulously crafted clothing. Designers showed previews for their Spring/Summer (SS) ’16 lines over five days during the week. With many designers’ lines portraying styles they personally feel will be trendy in the spring, a majority of the collections have few aspects in common.

Despite the major differences between designers and lines, there are a few common trends to watch and wear for SS ‘16 from the various collections that were previewed during LFW.

One of the trends to watch for this spring is print blocking. In past years simple color blocking has been common and consistent at LFW, but this year, designers decided to play it up. By using bright, bold and, in many cases, extremely intricate patterns of flowers and other natural-themed fabric, they created beautifully blocked garments, leading to more dynamic clothing.

Another trend seen this year at LFW is tying simple black, brown or other neutral-colored belts around the waist of models wearing looser fitting clothing to emphasize the waist. The color pink, in both pastels and neon, is also expected to be extremely popular in the spring, based on the lines shown at LFW. The widespread use of pink could be a take on Pantone’s color of the year from 2015, which was a deep red/pink called “Marsala.” Offthe- shoulder blouses and dresses were featured in the majority of lines as well, highlighting collarbones for SS ’16.

For those who are not afraid to take bigger fashion risks and follow less popular fashion trends, netting, chokers and even Victorian era inspired garments are all predicted to be in-style this coming SS season based on the lines shown at LFW.

As the other fashion weeks continue across the globe, it will be interesting to see previews of other upcoming SS ’16 collections and what trends and styles begin to become common among the worlds’ most popular and up-and-coming designers.