London Fashion Week: The Highlights

The London collections wowed yet again with their vast levels of creativity and imagination. Alexander McQueen made a return to the schedule, and there were some standout collections from Mary Katrantzou and Christopher Kane. Here are the highlights from the week.

Alice Temperley was in a nautical state of mind this season, casting a line out to blouses that riffed on pirate shirts and coats inspired by naval uniforms.

Roksanda Ilincic combined references to the cult classic “The Night Porter” and the work of legendary photographer Deborah Turbeville for autumn/winter 2016, offering a long and lean collection that was sensual and romantic.

Frosty Nordic landscapes and winter sports inspired Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos, who sent out a sophisticated collection of queenly looks, with nods to the shapes of the late Sixties and early Seventies.

The idea of a child first falling in love with dressing up inspired Mary Katrantzou, who looked at dress-up box staples like American cowboys and ballerinas for inspiration.

The bulbous topiary landscape and the colors of “The Badminton Game,” a slightly surreal painting by British artist David Inshaw, inspired Holly Fulton’s palette of deep chocolate and verdant olive greens, while a trip to the snowy top of Cairn Gorm mountain in Scotland, wearing just a ratty old anorak, a silk skirt, and a pair of tights informed her silhouettes.

Erdem Moralioglu’s mood board for autumn/winter 2016 was pinned with Vivien Leigh, Gertrude Lawrence, and Lauren Bacall – ladies who inspired the dramatic glamour of his collection.

The work of Erwin Blumenfeld, whose photography colored the pages of Vogue in the Forties and Fifties, was Emilia Wickstead’s inspiration this season. She used shades of dusty lavender, mustard yellow, and seafoam green for her signature ladylike shapes.

Christopher Kane saluted his mother Christine, who died a year ago, in the opening of his show through tied-under-the-chin plastic rain hats—the work of Stephen Jones. But the show overall was inspired by a notional hermitic hoarder.

Anya Hindmarch was back to her quirky mischief with a collection inspired by a time before social media and SMS messaging, specifically the characters of 1980s video games such as Pac-Man and Space Invaders.

Louise Trotter’s romantic vision for autumn/winter 2016 seemed to be made for an imaginary a Victorian heroine who has awoken from a drunken romp in a chilly hunting lodge, then hurriedly redressed, pulling her skirt on inside out, throwing her corset on over the top of her shirt and not quite fastening the hooks.