Once again I’ve been a naughty boy. Last night I went to The Face x Levi party at Lost (cross my heart and hope to die) and arrived back at my house in Essex at 9am the following morning… In the words of Velma Kelly, “it wasn’t until I was washing the blood off my hands I even knew they were dead!”.
Without the ability to move a single muscle in my body, and overwhelmed by the uncontrollable desire to binge watch the Victoria Beckham documentary in a semi-comatose state, I realised I just couldn’t make the 1.5 hour journey to Camberwell for the George Keburia show.
Instead, I called upon my trusted sidekick and fashion enthusiast Jaya Twill, who conveniently lives around the corner from the venue, to report back live from the front row. As I laid in bed, regretting last night’s decisions, I began to seethe with jealousy as Jaya’s texts started pinging through.
Felt like a goth Japanese e-girl anime indie sleeze victorian era csm student puked all over the carpeted runway
And then at the end a random middle aged white guy walked out
It wasnt bad but wasnt original
But that’s fine
Music made it
Everyone was stomping to the heavy metal
- Jaya Twill
This season’s LFW signifier is the slogan tee (and cheap faux fur). London is obsessed with them. Perhaps because the British are too afraid to say what we truly feel, so instead we plaster it across our chests. As a teenager I loved searching the underbelly of eBay to find the weirdest £1.99 slogan tee: “if found please return to the pub”. They work when ripped out of realist contexts, like Come Dine With Me, but have we taken them too far, too…. It’s my dream to own one of the neon pink “I’m not gay, but my boyfriend is” tees they sell outside tourist shops on Shaftesbury Avenue. And actually, one of my favourite items of clothing I own is a t-shirt that Jaya made me for secret santa one year. It has the lyrics of ‘A Heart Full of Love’ from Les Miserables written in Times New Roman dripping down its front.
‘Boob Job Becki’, Come Dine With Me
For his SS26 show, Keburia crowned the collection with a “BYE ANNA” t-shirt, referencing Anna Wintour’s announcement that she would be stepping down as the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue. For FW26, “HI LAUREN SANCHEZ BEZOS” is slashed through with a big red question mark, hinting at the rumour that Jeff Bezos might purchase Condé Nast for his wife Lauren. It’s all a little on the nose for me, and oozes with the desperation to appear cultural-politically engaged. Unless you’re spilling some real tea on a tee, I’m not interested.
It feels as though Keburia, as with many of the London Fashion Week shows this season, lacked slightly in ambition. Rather, designers mined resources from pre-existing tropes and aesthetic resources. At times, experiments in concept and form elevated the pre-digested ideas – for example in the Victorian lace inspired dress that cascaded into an umbrella, or the multi panelled, tudor tapestry-esque skirt that looked like it could slip off the model at any moment – but not quite enough to keep me interested. Fur trapper hats and spider motifs dragged everything down into the pits of Jaded London and, I’m not sure how many more times we can flog the Cheryl Cole-ification of the military jacket. If we fight any more for this love, we may all end up slain on the battlefield.
What we are left with is a reflection of London. A city that harbours enough talent and skill to create, but without the capacity or breathing space to access depth or originality. It’s hard to see oneself clearly here anymore. It functions like an inescapable tornado of cultural reference. There’s an overwhelming desperation to define era or scene, in a landscape that wants to reject that. Everyone watches everyone with eagle eyes, ready to criticise, yet the critics are indebted to praise out of the fear of not being paid, or being NFIed by PR. It results in many feeling the need to falsely prove themselves. In doing so, they lose the core of their artistic integrity. Originality is feigned when it is strived for. I don’t know what the answer is, but we must find a way forward, instead of continually digging our own graves in the aesthetic graveyard of the past. There are other options now. Throw your ashes into the sea, or become a tree.