London Fashion Weeks of the Past

A Video Timeline of Great Style

Growing up in London in the 90s, London Fashion Week was truly my introduction to fashion and runway shows—and what a time it was! I moved to London in 1991, when designers like Vivienne Westwood, Rifat Ozbek, Helen Storey, and Katherine Hamnett were fêted weekly on The Clothes Show. Of course, soon came McQueen leading the way for a new generation of more avant-garde London-based talent (including the now mostly-forgotten Owen Gaster and Tristan Webber, both included below), whose work was balanced at the shows by young designers for whom elegance and glamour were key (such as Ben de Lisi and Pearce Fionda) or who reveled in a kind of luxe bohemianism (like Matthew Williamson.) The sheer variety and fun in experimentation can be understood as hallmarks of British fashion since the late 1960s, as clearly shown in the twenty-five clips I’ve featured below.

There are no McQueen shows included as most full collection videos I found on YouTube have embedding restrictions, but a good place to start if you’ve never watched his shows is with “Highland Rape” or “Nihilism” and go from there.

Hopefully, these clips will introduce you to some new designers or ones you’ve forgotten—and maybe, if you are anything like me, inspire you to search deep through eBay for some undiscovered gems.

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