London Fashion Week 2015: How designers make product placement fashionable
Courting a different partner each season is not great for the reputation, but sometimes needs must
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Your support makes all the difference.For London designers rich in creativity but lacking commercial clout, getting into bed with a sponsor can be a tricky relationship to negotiate.
Courting a different partner each season is not great for the reputation, but sometimes needs must. Handled cleverly, a bit of product placement can go a long way to keeping the bailiffs at bay.
Take, for instance, Richard Nicoll who designed a Tinkerbell-sponsored fibre-optic slip dress, with the help of the tech company XO, as an ethereal introduction to his show.
That fleeting dusting of fairy magic – and Disney dollars – was just enough to set the tone for a collection imbued with opalescence and feather-light chiffon. This wasn’t airy-fairy though – leather, gingham and utilitarian detailing saw to that. Soft, feminine tailoring was layered over body-conscious sportswear, just the thing for the executive gym bunny.
Nicoll is a designer who has previously enjoyed Topshop’s largesse – a mantle that has now passed to Ashley Williams, who for her first solo show also profited from the generous coffers of Coca-Cola and Swarovski. The former’s logo was reworked into earrings, while crystals from the latter were sprinkled on to a bralet. Doodle-printed tea dresses with Mao collars and minidresses with cutout details were accentuated by rubberised versions of traditional fastenings. Despite such deep pockets, Williams’s East meets West retained an amateurish charm.
Topshop isn’t just a bankroller though, as it is increasingly pushing its Unique line as a high-end proposition. The latest to buy into that idea is Net-A-Porter, which launched autumn/winter last week.
Paul Smith is a pro at that game – a British institution, his menswear business is phenomenal and his womenswear works best when it borrows from the boys. While there was a mannish charm to oversized shirt dresses, cigarette trousers and Bermuda shorts in signature stripes, Smith didn’t take this too literally. There was a distinctly feminine flair to his cut, and this collection was all the better for it.
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