Fashion doesn't exist in a vacuum, and one of our favourite aspects of London Fashion Week is reading between the lines at shows and presentations to discover the cultural references that have inspired designers' collections. Something as small as a song lyric or a chance meeting, or as big as an art movement or female archetype can ignite the first sparks of a designer's creativity, leading to the pieces we see on the catwalk during fashion week.
This season, everything from feminist film to Russian art via the Queen and the Midwest galvanised our favourite LFW mainstays; click through to find the inspiration behind SS18's collections.
The Love Witch at Clio Peppiatt
Clio Peppiatt's presentation was inspired by Anna Biller's 2016 visual feast The Love Witch. The film, an homage to 1960s horror flicks and Technicolour films from the 1910s, tells the story of a femme fatale witch who uses her powers (of seduction) to make men fall in love with her – with terrible consequences. It's a camp, feminist, aesthetically lavish film that inspired Peppiatt's show, from the set design and music to the intricate garments.
Photo: Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
"It's one of my favourite films," Peppiatt told Refinery29. "There was a recurrent thread that's always present in my work: the contrast of overplayed femininity with something dark and macabre twisted through it." Twisted indeed; throughout the film, The Love Witch repeats lines in a sweet but manic way that tells you something bad will come of her pursuit of love: "Giving men sex is a way of unlocking their love potential"; "I'm your ultimate fantasy!"
The pink, red, and baby blue colour palette, plus the rich, silky fabrics of the film lent itself well to Peppiatt's aesthetic. From her palmistry-themed invitations to the tarot cards embroidered on the back of jackets, snippets of The Love Witch can be found throughout Clio's collection. "It was such a joy to reinterpret, like the girl playing the harp at the presentation, which was inspired by the café scene in the film." In fact, Peppiatt's girls stayed late at the café, gathered around candle-covered tables, looking forlorn and waiting for something – perhaps love – to arrive.
Chloe Newman
Queen Elizabeth II via Harlem at Erdem
Inspired by the 1958 meeting of jazz musician Duke Ellington and Queen Elizabeth II (for whom he composed a song), Erdem's collection transported us to a world where the Queen travelled to Harlem in the '50s, meeting Dorothy Dandridge, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. "What if Dorothy Dandridge ended up in Buckingham Palace?" the designer mused. The American actress, singer and dancer (and first African-American woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress) embodied the frill and fancy of the '50s, all pearl twinsets, lavish silk dresses and circle skirts.
Photo: Via Getty Images
From royal ruffles and princely slippers to classic tweed, the collection was brimming with details fit for a queen, but the real excitement (and dare we say, sexiness) came through in the metallics: shimmering skirts with pearl embellishment, plunging sweetheart necklines, and sheer lace with bare breasts underneath.
Dolly Parton and Alabama Worley at Marques' Almeida
This season, Marques' Almeida's mid-town girls stomped through Brick Lane in all the trappings of a midwestern sweetheart. Dolly Parton's baby pink feather boas were brought to life as trims on silk cutaway dresses, while her cowboy boots were refreshed for 2017 with gold and black pinstripes.
Photo: Andrew Putler/Redferns/Getty Images
Aspects of True Romance 's peachy Alabama Worley were also seen, through cow-print trousers and blue-hued halter necks. Eyelet detailing paid homage to the wild west, while gingham brought an element of Little House on the Prairie. As ever, the Marques' Almeida girl is strong, contemporary, and wears what she wants: "Whether you’re a teenager, a mum of three in Mid Town America, a 60 year old retired business woman, or an artist."
Faye Wei Wei at Shrimps
With a background in history of art, abstract, delicate and whimsical illustrations are never far from Hannah Weiland's designs. This season, colours and motifs were inspired by British-Chinese artist Faye Wei Wei, who was commissioned to create four towering new paintings portraying snakes, moons, shells, sea urchins, arrows and stars as the backdrop to the Shrimps presentation for SS18.
The colourful collection played out through Shrimps' signature faux furs in wavy textures, luminous lime greens and printed monochrome. With hand-drawn inks of animals, feathers, shells and summer pumpkins, Wei Wei's archetypal brush strokes and lines could be seen throughout the pieces.
Love, Deceit and Korean Soap Operas at Ryan Lo
"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes something bittersweet. Oh life…" read Ryan Lo's show notes. Though inspired by Korean soap opera Stairway to Heaven, the cornerstones of Princess Di's wardrobe (Victoriana lace and pussy bow blouses), and Princess Mako of Akishino, we saw something darker in Lo's collection. A marked shift from his typical technicolor and kawaii aesthetic, this season felt like the deviant child of a wedding and a funeral. Tim Burton's 2005 film The Corpse Bride came to mind, in which a murdered bride drags a groom-to-be into the land of the dead.
Photo: REX/Shutterstock
Combining the most joyous and saddest of occasions, "the Ryan Lo girl slows right down and finds herself in funeral gothic black and wedding white." Black chiffon took the place of bridal white gloves, milliner Stephen Jones created monochrome hats that sat off-kilter atop model's heads, and stomping Dr. Marten's paced the black and white tiles of Saint Sepulchre-Without-Newgate's church hall.
Betty Draper and the Stepford Wives at Christopher Kane
“I have always been obsessed by that pristine woman, so clean, so proper, yet having an emotional breakdown inside,” says Christopher Kane. Images come to mind of Betty Draper, Mad Men 's wholesome and dutiful housewife, finally cracking and grabbing her kids' BB gun to shoot her threatening neighbour's pigeons. Or of Joanna Eberhart from Ira Levin's novel Stepford Wives, who becomes trapped in a suburban nightmare. "We wanted to look at that in the collection; the idea of interiors, of a closed domestic world, made into the exterior look of a person," Kane explained. "There is something so OCD about it, something both clean and kinky. It’s what goes on behind closed doors in those everyday environments; the smell of bleach and Royal Doulton figurines."
Photo: REX/Shutterstock
Inspired by the humdrum and suffocating lives led by those women twitching net curtains and ensuring every surface is dusted down, Kane presented us with elegant '40s housecoats, doily-esque lace, and blush-pink silk nightgowns. But there's something not quite right in this domestic sphere – pulled-back ponytails were left slightly dishevelled, and glitter residue on eyes suggested Kane's housewife isn't as put-together as she first appears.
Wassily Kandinsky at Roksanda
A modernist approach has always been at the heart of Roksanda's aesthetic but this season the designer looked to the abstract Russian Constructivist movement, which was based on the philosophy of art as practice for social purposes, like aiding the revolution. "Through a contradiction of contemporary and romantic proportions, a new definition of strength and beauty is formed," read Roksanda's show notes, echoing the romance and contradictions of artist Wassily Kandinsky's work, all dreamlike shapes and surreal colours.
Photo: Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty Images
In a literal sense, the designer's pieces were an homage to Kandinsky, through inspired colour palettes and bold, graphic shapes. More generally, the nostalgia for "a more artisan past" played out through the raw fringing, woven waffle textures and hand-dip-dyed and stripped organza fabric. This handmade focus gave Roksanda's typically feminine and strong pieces a more artisanal feel.
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