Another of Those Outfit Posts at London Fashion Week

I’ve been going to London Fashion Week for a while now but this is definitely the first time I wore dungarees, possibly even trainers but I seem to recall that one somewhere. My point is that it’s a bit of a change for me, a bit of switch from some of my usual fashion week outfits. On parallel notes but completely off topic, I read an interesting article the other day that touched on the subject of the demise of street style photography, their hypotheses being that the original point has been now been obliterated. The first time I went to London Fashion Week, I was on a mission to get snapped – and I did, not every day, but most days and I even found myself on some blogs – it was amazing. With each passing season, it seemed to happen less, unless, I happened to be attending one of the larger shows (probably because they figure I might be a famous person).

The article I read, expanded on the topic of bloggers who are paid to wear specific designer clothes and then the photographers who are paid to shoot those bloggers for the brand. Or other photographers paid by magazines but their brief, of course, includes shooting the most famous faces wearing recognisable brands. Case in point – have you ever seen a plus size woman in a street style article? Do you think plus size women don’t attend fashion week? And apart from Suzy Menkes have you ever seen an older woman? Yet most of the big editors and fashion powers are over 40…these people have amazing style, style none of the famous bloggers being photographed posses but they’re not recognisable faces and that’s the difference. It has become all about what sells and this in itself is slowly, slowly killing the golden goose that lay the egg, that created the concept of street style and the idea of finding inspiration from places like Instagram and Pinterest. Most of the outfits look the same in today’s articles, there’s barely ever any clever layering, barely any pattern clashing, yet inside the shows, especially in London, the clothes tell a different story. Why are none of these clever outfits ever in these articles?

Nowadays, getting photographed by street style photographers no longer makes my day, not getting photographed no longer makes me feel like my outfit isn’t good enough. At least my outfit is something I’ve put together, something that represents me and my style, not something chosen by a brand. I have no problem at all with collaborations, gosh it would be a bit rich of me seeing as I did one for this very outfit but there’s a difference between someone putting together a look through various different brand collaborations and their own wardrobe and someone wearing a head to toe look from one designer that was probably been put together by said designer.

On that note, just a few words about this outfit – in the past I’ve tended to wear a lot of designer items to fashion week which is fine but I know that to many of my readers, this can make it feel a bit unattainable. I’m a true believer of the separation of fashion and money, meaning one does not equal the other and this year, I decided that my London Fashion Week outfits should be a mix of highly affordable and more premium items. So my clothes are all from New Look. I was lucky enough to be invited to the store in London to choose whatever pieces I wanted to wear and keep and this is what I created after browsing through 3 floors in 2 mins ( I was pressed for time) and working myself up into a state of anxiety. Each is extremely affordable too, only the jacket is priced above 40 euros I believe. The shoes are the FILA disruptor trainers that I’ve been rapturing over on Insta stories, and my bag is one of the loves of my life – a little Gucci number. My scarf and earrings are both oldies found lurking in my wardrobe and taken up to London to perhaps be useful. My makeup is all Revlon.