“My first fashion show was Gareth Pugh’s black leather and PVC collection of autumn/winter 06. The giant poodle and black balloon looks blew my mind. I had no idea catwalk shows could have so much energy nor be so magical. I was hooked.” Holly Shackleton, Editor-in-Chief
“The first show I can remember seeing was Yohji Yamamoto Fall 2001. It was my first time in Paris and it was Yohji’s first collaboration with Adidas in a huge warehouse with no music. The silence was intoxicating. I was hooked.” Alastair McKimm, Fashion Director
“I actually cannot remember the designer but I think it was a god awful On/Off show that I must have been interning at. Despite not having a seat, being shoved and jostled from side to side and only being able to see a slither of the clothes, I remember thinking it was the best thing ever and in some small way, I thought I was finally on my way to where I wanted to be.” Lynette Nylander, Managing Editor
“My first fashion was a Chanel couture show in Paris when I was about 12. A family friend got me a ticket and we went over especially for it, it was the most exciting day ever, I even had a seat!” Julia Sarr-Jamois, Fashion Editor at Large
“My first show was a Richard Nicoll show in the mid-00s. A religious The Bold and the Beautiful devotee, I remember wondering when the lights would go out and a spotlight would come on and follow some 80s-legged, sports-catalogue-looking, Katherine-Kelly-Lang-like beauty down the runway, negligee and feathers in tow and scored by a synthesizer soundtrack. It was a wake-up call but I still loved every second of it. And when I went to my first John Galliano show (by John Galliano) in Paris and experienced another side of fashion, all my B&B childhood dreams came true.” Anders Christian Madsen, Fashion Features Editor
“I think I went to a show in New York a few years ago but it wasn’t very interesting/I can’t remember much about it. So I think it’s fair to count the recent mensweek in London as my first proper fashion show. Elgar Johnston invited me to Astrid Anderson, for whom he was styling. I loved it but most of all I loved that she closed with Wiz Khalifa’s We Dem Boys which is basically the best US rap song of 2014. I realised it wasn’t the done thing to busy a move at a show but if I could have, I would have. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before (I was a bit hung truth be told) so was planning to head home after. Instead, I ended up joining Holly, our lovely Editor, Princess Julia, Ben Reardon – ex i-D Ed and current Man About Town head honcho, Wonderland’s Danielle Emerson, Nike’s Holly Ferguson and stylist Danny Reed for a right massive fashion day out. Well for me anyway. It was brilliant. We drank shots of ginger (and the odd glass of champagne), sat front row at every show from Christopher Raeburn to Agi & Sam (Ben whizzed me in everywhere despite the fact I didn’t actually have any invites apart from Astrid) and ate a packet of crisps and some chocolate (not very fashion). The shows of course were amazing – I particularly loved how fast it all was. 20 mins in and out. Lovely. And I got freebies. An ace backpack and an iPod cover thing. You don’t get that in the music industry anymore kids. I might not be about to swap MP3’s for Martin Maison Margeila, but I had the most best and brilliant fashion day out with some of London’s best and brilliant fashionistas (and me!). Well done Fashion. Well done everyone.” Hattie Collins, Music Editor
“I think the first shows I went to were probably before LFW became established in 1984. People often did shows in clubs and I remember seeing an Anthony Price show at the Camden Palace in 1983. When Body Map started doing LFW shows I sometimes went, Jeffrey Hinton has archive films of these events, (he created their catwalk music as well) so you really can experience something of the fun they had. Quite different from any of the other shows going on at the time they featured Michael Clark and his dancers, friends, family and of course actual models such as Lesley Weiner. One thing I must say, the length of a show sometimes went on a lot longer than they do nowadays. I also was a model for Stephen Jones when he did his soirées over fashion week in his salon. By the way I’ve returned to modeling for Stephen this season with a postcard portrait for his spring/summer 15 collection!” Princess Julia, Cultural Correspondent
“The first show I ever went to was JC de Castelbajac autumn/winter 10. I was living in Paris and a photographer friend was invited so I strutted into the Louvre alongside her in my best fashion clothes, masking internal panic. It was Bambi season and I stood behind rows of people much more important than me, watching the grown up Disney parade in awe. Alongside the fawn princesses marched knights in shining armour, one of which was practically dragged down the runway by a giant wolfdog he was attempting to walk. I decided that fashion was silly, but that I liked it.” Francesca Dunn, Staff Writer
“I find it hard to specify a show because I love them all, and the excitement they can create, for different reasons. One of the most memorable ones for my was the MAN show that comprised of Astrid Andersen, Agi and Sam and Shaun Samson in autumn/winter 12. It was a day of menswear latched on to the end of womens’ fashion week and it was so vibrant, so amazing, so LONDON and so hot. I liked menswear, but this was something new. It was quite simple in its setting, but the casting and the energy, the unadulterated masculinity and attitude was epic. Such three amazing menswear designers all set in a triptych was amazing to watch and I will never forget it!” Bojana Kozarevic, Fashion Assistant
“It was one of the !WOWOW! parties, in Peckham, Matthew Stone and Gareth Pugh and that lot. I’m not really sure if you’d call it a proper fashion show, I think Gareth was doing some avant-garde performance art thing at it. There was a band playing called Swarfega too, which was just a guy playing the drums whilst some fat bloke threw Swarfega at people. I was 18, had just moved to London to go to Art School and had never seen anything like it.” Felix Petty, Content Manager
“My first proper London show was the Marios Schwab S/S 2006 Fashion East debut. I was there while the collection was being designed and constructed so seeing it all come to life in the bowels of the Camden Electric Ballroom to the sounds of Moby ‘Go’ nearly made me cry.” Jack Robinson, Senior Video Commissioner
“The first fashion show I ever went to was an after football party in McDonalds, I remember all the boys getting changed into their freshest LA Gear, Kappa and Reeboks then heading to McDonalds to have a burger. When I moved to London the first fashion show I attended officially was a Christopher Shannon show inspired by Northern cultures sportswear trends such as LA Gear, Kappa and Reebok.” Declan Higgins, Associate Producer
“Working as Studio Manager for Richard Nicoll, dressing models backstage for his spring/summer 10 show.” Tiwirayi Magwenzi, Production Manager
“Although I had previously been to various slightly amateurish fashion shows staged in nightclubs, the first bona fide catwalk show I went to at London Fashion Week was in March 1995. It was Alexander McQueen’s notorious ‘Highland Rape’ show for autumn/winter 1995-6, very early on in his career. I was working in a boutique then called Sign of The Times and Alexander used to come in with his boyfriend, Andrew Groves, who was also a really great designer and sold his stuff there. I can’t quite remember how, but some of us Sign of The Times staff were roped in to be backstage dressers at this show. We weren’t paid to do it – and didn’t expect to be – we did it just for fun, and had no idea it would subsequently prove to be such a legendary collection or event. I had to dress a very skinny American model, with a loud voice, whose name I can’t recall. I was shitting myself with nerves, as you could really feel the tension and excitement growing backstage and we all knew how much energy, creativity, passion and sheer graft Alexander had put into this collection. Luckily, my model pretty much only had to wear a pair of sinister knickers – which had stubbed-out cigarettes attached to them – along with a few other pieces from the collection. She was clearly rather horrified by this avant garde ‘lingerie’, but nonetheless she slipped into the ciggie-knickers and stormed down the catwalk, like a true professional. We managed to catch a few glimpses of the show on a backstage monitor as it was happening, but I was taking my role as a backstage dresser very seriously – terrified I might fuck it all up – and concentrated on fiddling about with my designated rail of ‘Highland Rape’ designs and trying to be organised. At that time, Alexander – or Lee, as everyone called him then – was still quite a cult figure, a long way from being massively famous. And he was certainly not rich. In fact, after the show had finished – and everyone was raving about it – the rumour was he was so skint that someone had to lend him a pound, so he could buy a burger from a nearby burger van!” James Anderson, Contributing Editor
“It was autumn/winter 09 and the seeds of London menswear as we know it were just being planted. Long before London Collections: Men was even a farfetched fantasy, Fashion East and MAN created an afternoon of menswear to close London Fashion Week. I first explored the potential of the capital’s diverse menswear talent by stepping into a townhouse opposite the show tents where Katie Eary, Jaiden RVA James, Sibling and Martine Rose were given free rein to do as they wish to their own room. It was a dream.” Steve Salter, Head of Socials
“My first fashion show was an LCF graduate show, most of which was spent fixating on the angelic face of Arya Stark sat across from me rather than the clothes on the catwalk.” Ryan White, Social Intern
“My first fashion show was having an older sister who only used to let me play with her and her friends and she would only let me play if I dressed up as a girl.” James Digby, Account Manager
“Remember Andrew Gn? He was the go-to for a certain type of sophisticated, embellished lady fashion for a period in the mid-2000s. As a Paris fashion week assistant to The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan, I had the lucky task of attending a few smaller shows on her behalf and sending through undoubtedly overwritten write-ups about them. I remember taking the #1 metro train and getting off at the Carrousel du Louvre, where you can walk straight to the show venue without emerging onto the street. I sat nervously in Robin’s spot, and found the whole thing unbearably exciting. I loved the practice of taking notes on what I saw, and trying to make sense of it on the metro ride back.” Rory Satran, Editorial Director, US
“I would have to go with the very first womens show I assisted on which was Alexander McQueen autumn/winter 06. It was called ‘The Widows of Culloden’ and to this day I think one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. We had to do two shows one after the other as the seating was so limited and intimate. The climax of the show was the bit I actually got to watch as they did a special show for the McQueen team after the two official shows were over. After all of the looks had come out, the pyramid in the centre of the stage began to glow with a ball of light growing bigger and gradually became a vision of a woman shrouded in an amazing tulle ruffle dress floating inside the pyramid. The veil was blown off to reveal Kate Moss looking like a beautiful ghost. After about a minute she gradually began to grow smaller and dissolve away. This was all to the most moving music and also at a time when Kate had just come out of rehab after being attacked in the press for allegedly taking cocaine. I was knackered and pretty worn out as in the days running up to McQueen shows you averaged about 3 hours sleep a night, but I don’t think I was the only one who was so moved they started crying at seeing this hologram of her. It was so McQueen, something that only he could have created managing to be moving, romantic, dark and optimistic at the same time. My instinct was to say ethereal and while typing this I looked up the definition which is “extremely delicate in a way that seems too perfect and beautiful for this world’. I think that sums up my feelings about my first proper show and the vision of Kate.” Tracey Nicholson, Fashion Editor, US
“Although it felt like I was at a fashion show every time I watched my high school’s small-yet-vocal sect of Juggalos guzzling two liter bottles of off-brand soda while parading through our local mall in full face makeup and Hatchet Man regalia, my first official fashion week show was a little different. I covered Delpozo’s collection last season, a show which featured delicate, feminine silhouettes and a live seven-piece orchestral outfit scoring the models’ walk that–surprise!–didn’t play the sweet lullabies of the Insane Clown Posse. I prepared by spending an alarming amount of time selecting which black shirt would look best with what black pants, and practicing how not to step on Olivia Palermo. I felt a little out of place initially, but the realization that someone actually trusted my ability and valued my opinion enough to publish it was and still is the best feeling in the entire world.” Emily Manning, Editorial Assistant, US
Credits
Photography Mitchell Sams. Emanuel Ungaro autumn/winter 14