‘Naomi for president!’: London fashion week comes back to life

In-person events are part of industry’s ‘reset’ as models return to the catwalks and the party restarts

“Ecstatic” was how British Fashion Council chair Stephanie Phair summed up the mood as London fashion week returned to catwalks after 18 months of taking place on screen.

Critics argue that the revival of in-person events is a return to fashion’s carbon-emitting excesses, but Phair countered that it is a force for good, as an essential part of the fashion industry’s current “reset”. Speaking at a breakfast of oat milk lattes and fermented potato waffles with coffee-cured sea trout before the first day of shows, she said: “Fashion week isn’t just about looking at clothes, it’s about talking about the future … we need to come together, to commit to our transition to a circular economy.”