Hell Yeah London Fashion Week Rules! Look at this Shit!

Nooooow we’re talking. Every fashion month, London Fashion Week is like the fun prize we get for sitting through New York Fashion Week (or, alternately, like the party you’re allowed to go to after you’re finally excused from dinner with your parents). Of course there’s greatness and lovely ideas at NYFW—for Spring, the standouts included Degen, Gypsy Sport, and Eckhaus Latta, so basically the young and fun and weirdo anti-establishmentarians—but young and fun and weirdo and unorthodox and unexpected and anti-establishment is the general rule at London Fashion Week. Basically, London fashion designers are on the whole way cooler than New York fashion designers. It’s a renaissance. Don’t be mad, just let it wash over you.

Above, looks from Typical Freaks at LFW’s “Ones to Watch” runway show present fashion literally as a crafty creative endeavor, copious fabrics and patterns alluding to batiks and silkscreens full of youthful whimsy and creativity. Fashion is fun, everyone chill out!

First off, I have to commend Bora Aksu for solving the dilemma that is the flash tattoo by just saying fuck-all and putting it on the face. You know how flash tattoos are slightly embarrassing and often suck from a design standpoint but a part of you sort of secretly wants to try them? Conquer your fears by putting them on your forehead like these; wear with pride! Anyway, these gauzy chiffon shifts are marshmallow clouds of intricate laser-cut lace patterns, super-ethereal and romantic but also devastatingly modern, especially when bright shades of putrescent green weave into the delicate pinks. Triumphal as fuck.

Fyodor Golan nails what so many other designers try and fail: the design duo of Fyodor Podgorny and Golan Frydman capture club kid essence and reflect it back to us, rather than mining it for ideas and giving us deep-fried reworks of raves that happened three months (or years, or decades) ago. They’re also very studious of pop art, but are inherently pop artist themselves, as opposed to resting on Andy Warhol xeroxed-copied laurels. Huge fans of neons and iridescents and lucites (all of which is Julianne bait; clear is, legit, my favorite color), this time around the label put freaky Anne Geddes style rose prints with hologramic sheer skirts and ginormous platform sandals. What helps it work beyond gimmick or trend (cough J. Scott cough) is that it’s just constructed so goddamn well: look at the sleeves and cut of that stiff blue button down, the way it creates a kind of hard candy shell for the fluidity of the skirt below it.

Also, give me this. ALL OF THIS.

Ashley Isham’s style was headgear, headgear, headgear. You know why? Because you are a fucking queen. The London-via-Singapore designer, who’s famous for dressing people like Lady Gaga in conceptual evening wear, was inspired by peacocks and peacockery, parrots and bright tropical colors, here translated via rainbow pinwheel crowns and Khaleesi capes and Grecian goddess drapes.

Also from the “Ones to Watch” show: Leaf xia, who showed bright, happy patterns and outsized flounces, feminine but with a clubby edge.

Finally, Molly Goddard’s presentation was like if Alice in Wonderland was an art school student and also really into sandwiches. Acid green as a kinderdream and contrasting clogs with shirred pum pum shorts.

Yes, I know! All of this is fucking great! And it’s only the first day! WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!