London Fashion Week

London Fashion Weeks  This Week

According to figures from the British Fashion Council, the fashion industry is now worth an astonishing 26 billion pound to the UK economy. And the business consultants Oxford Economics have estimated that it supports upto 979 million jobs.

The impressive figures emerge as Fashion week begins in London, that time of the year when Somerset house explodes with colour. The big names include Tom Ford, Burberry, Paul Smith and Mulberry. Although international, it is also a distinctively British event. Mulberry’s production and clientele, for example might have globalised, but it is still a quintessentially English brand. Its advertising campaigns are set in forests and seaside piers and the clothes have taken their inspiration from such national symbols as dog lovers and country houses.

Britain announced itself to the world as a style guru back in the sixties, when the streets of London filled up with boutiques and few designers targeting a fresh youthful market keen to shrug off the drab greys of postwar austerity. But it was not until 1984 that London gained its own official fashion week and since then it has built a reputation as one of the big four such events – rivaling Milan, Paris and New York. That this year it coincides with that Bri Awards and the Baftas confirm our capital’s status as a hub of international culture.

Consider all the designers advertisers and shops that will benefit from the next few days, giving our economy a much needed injection of cash. What a pleasure to discover that making great art – which fashion can certainly be can also help spur Britain’s recovery. May people continue to come to London to find out how to look good the world is welcome to shop till it drops