electric_dress: [London] Fashion Week Diary Day 4

London in the sunshine

Being shattered from the night before, though not really hungover as such, I sprang out of bed at the crack of 10AM. Niall had had to move his car earlier in the morning to a cheaper parking spot and bought breakfast, so I heated the croissants and pains au chocolat for Sara, him and myself. Sara had to go to a meeting about dressing for KTZ and do uni work, so she was pretty much off shows for the day. I got ready with the following outfit; originally I posted a picture of me in Paris, which you can still see here, when I was snapped by Wall Dress, but here is a nice one kindly taken by Naomi of Lipstick and Loudmouths.....

// What I wore / Coat: Noa Noa / Mesh tunic: Ragged Priest / Jeans: Isabel Marant / Bag: H&M / Fingerless gloves: Carlotta Actis Barone / Brogues: H&M / Hat: from Dublin //

Niall gave me a lift to a tube nearer central but he had to get the car from God knows where he'd found a cheap spot, so I waited for him outside Sara's. In my hat, I drew a bit of attention;some East End lads thought I was a strippogram. "How much!?", they asked me. I looked the gobby one directly in the eye and said "for what?". He didn't have the balls to push it. They never do - when they heard my brother was coming to pick me off the sloped of; funny how men will verbally assault a woman on the street but not if they hear another man might show up. Niall wanted to go talk to them when he rolled up, but I knew it would only give them an ego boost to b challenged about it! Losers. He dropped me off at the next tube and I made my way into town.

I met up with the lovely Ania, editor of Slave magazine for coffee in the Southbank Centre on the other side of the Thames from London Fashion Week Land. I have written two articles for Slave, in issues 4 and 6, and love their eye for quality art, fashion and next-big-thing to cover, executed with brilliant images. I also worked with them on a photo-shoot when I was editor of Glasgow University Magazine. Ania has recently moved Slave from Edinburgh to London along with co-editors and fellow photographers Artur and Louise, and though she loves the big city buzz, is busy re-launching in a new place. We chatted ambition, opportunities and direction, before heading over to Somerset House where I wanted to street style and people watch before the daylight went completely.

I bumped into street style connaisseur Jonathan of Les Garcons de Glasgow, who took a few shots of moi... we'll see if they made the final cut! I also met up with Danielle, the budding blogger and journo my friend James introduced me to on Saturday, who I love and can't wait to spend more time with post-LFW. She hasn't really done fashion week before, and I'd thought she could register as a blogger as easily as I'd done, but one forgets how "easy" it is to do stuff at fashion week when you have some road experience blagging and just having balls - Danielle, bless her, was way too sweet with the girl on the desk and unfortunately didn't get to register.... I felt pretty gutted. However, she got some cool shots outside, and I have confidence if she gets the blog kicking at a healthy pace by next season, she'll have no problem.

We headed to the Topshop caravan where I got one of the tee's designed by the New Gen alumni - there were far more than I'd seen on Vogue a few weeks back, and I loved the Craig Lawrence and Louise Gray ones. However, with a bit of deliberation with Danielle, I went for the Ashish one; it's a brand I love and I reckoned it would fit in really well with my wardrobe already. After, I used the press lounge and availed of free coffee before we headed to Vauxhall Fashion Scout for Prose.

We went to the press lounge there, which was a lot bigger and chilled for a bit. Next thing, Sim was ringing us, the kerazy party girl who we'd met the night before, and along with her mate and all-round sweetheart, model Jade Thompson, we blagged in through the backstage area, though of course we all had invites. Nothing like making it a bit more special! Sim and Jade are super fun and it was great hanging out with them again. I got some really nice beauty shots in the backstage area, and it was kind of fun to see the collection pre-runway!

The collection was strong, loose shapes juxtaposed with ethnic inspired detail and embellishment. We sat front row, and Danielle got some great images; check them out in full with my collection review here. We headed over for a few drinks to the O'Niell's bar before the Lako Bukia show. Sim has a wonderful way with words and people, and had picked up Lewis Taylor on the way, he of 1883 magazine who videoed me on Friday - he didn't remember me at first, but I was able to find out why we never made it to the Muppets! (Okay, so it was just a joke and he didn;t realise I was waaaay serious. #Fact) He is really sweet in person, is still dead young and has a interesting story about how he pretty much charmed his way to where he is now - that and a good dose of pure luck.

Lako Bukia was next - I absolutely loved the show, and again, front row gave us unparalleled views of the collection. Inspired by broken mirrors, it was a powerful collection of dark tailoring and disco-meets-fetish references. Read my show review here. By this point night had fallen, and it was time for me to head off to join my brother Niall and sister Sinéad in Thornton Heath for a Pancake Day pre-party and well deserved rum 'n' coke.