Monday 20 September 2010

Backstage at London Fashion Week


Last Friday I worked backstage at the Caroline Charles show at London Fashion Week as a dresser which means exactly that. I dressed models. Fast. To begin with I was extremely excited by the glamour of it all. Unlike all those style bloggers hanging around Somerset house,I was a lucky one, dressed in black and clutching a backstage pass. The prospect of being amongst fellow 5'11ers was also an appealing prospect. That was until I got back stage and saw what they looked like. There's no denying it, these models were knockout good looking. As I got to grips with my dwindling self esteem, I began to witness the explosive rush of creativity in this little room. Backstage at a fashion show is not just a case of shoving clothes on gazelle-like creatures, people are constructing gravity-defying hairstyles and applying make-up to perfection, they are styling, adjusting and studying their creations in a whirlwind of silk and sequinned pageantry.

Although Caroline Charles may not be on my top 10 list of designers I'd most like to wear (she caters for a more mature clientele) I have to admit, I really admired her focused attention to detail amongst the rush backstage with photographers and journalists clamouring for interviews. Before the show began, each model tried on her three different outfits for th e lowly dressers to practice the fine arts of zipping and tying, and for Caroline and her assistants to make the odd adjustment - vintage sunglasses here, a wide brimmed hat there. By the time the show began, each outfit had been carefully tweeked to create a luxurious and ladylike, candy-coloured nod to the 50s.


Witnessing fashion from behind the scenes was a fascinating experience. I defy anyone who says that fashion is a frivolous waste of time, these designers are curators, curators of spectacles worthy of all the cyber-analysis our there.

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