London fashion is more exciting today than in the Swinging Sixties, according to the driving force behind the capital’s men’s fashion week.
The four-day London Collections: Men gala of catwalk shows and presentations opened today and chairman Dylan Jones believes it will seal the city’s reputation as an international centre for male style.
“There’s a tendency to look upon the Sixties as the first iteration of Swinging London,” he said.
“You look at the Seventies and the rise of punk, the Eighties and designer culture or the Nineties with Britpop but actually London now is more exciting than it has ever been.
“That’s because more things are going on, you have got more urban villages, fashion that is accessible to everybody and a genuine menswear culture.”
This year’s event will be bigger than ever — drawing in Alexander McQueen, Belstaff, Burberry, Dunhill, Topman Design, Tommy Hilfiger and Coach.
In addition Barbour, Moschino and Pringle of Scotland will be returning to the show, which was created by the British Fashion Council as the male answer to London Fashion Week. Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine will perform at Burberry’s show on Monday.
Jones, editor of GQ, said: “London at the moment is probably the world’s most exciting capital.
“Obviously New York, Paris and Milan have their attractions but for international appeal, talent and fun London is the place right now. I think we’ve hit a wave.”
He credited the rise of London’s fashion-conscious hipsters for bringing catwalk style to the high street.
“If you look back to when London was meant to be swinging in each decade, there were a favoured 500 people who went to all the nightclubs and shops and were photographed for the newspapers and magazines,” he said. “But now fashion is far more egalitarian and democratic.”
Jones, who published a book of interviews with David Cameron in 2010, was critical of the Prime Minister’s opposite number Jeremy Corbyn who has been called an unlikely “hipster icon” by some.
He said: “I think Corbyn looks like a dustbin man. In fact I take that back as it’s an insult to dustbin men, who make a fair fist of how they have to look. Corbyn just looks dreadful.”
This London Collections: Men will feature 65 designers under one roof — spanning two floors of Victoria House at Bloomsbury Place through to Monday.
Sales of men’s clothing rose by 22 per cent over the past five years, reaching £13.5 billion in 2014, according to the British Fashion Council.
Designer of the year Jonathan Anderson’s catwalk show for the event will be streamed live worldwide on Grindr. His JW Anderson collection is to be revealed exclusively via the gay dating app.
Anderson, who splits his time between his Dalston studio and Paris, said: “This widely used social platform reflects youth culture.”
