Once a launching pad for new designers, it is fast becoming the main event. But LFW mustn't let the luxury and money crush its sense of silliness.
Click here to see a gallery of the highlights from the week
On Monday evening, walking through St James's in the dark, looking for the Tom Ford show, I stopped to ask directions. "Over there, madam," a kindly security guard explained. "Do you see where that Bentley is pulling up, over by where the black velvet carpet starts? Right next to that row of rather handsome gentlemen in tuxedos? I should think that's what you're looking for, shouldn't you?"
Like, doh. How hard can it be to find a fashion show, right? But in my defence, London Fashion Week didn't used to look like this. It used to be more a case of: keep your eyes peeled for the gaggle of work-experience kids wearing cheap, uncomfortable high heels and outfits borrowed from the fashion cupboard, huddling together for warmth in a cheap marquee. Bentleys and tuxedos? Not so much.
The setbacks-and-comebacks narrative of London Fashion Week over the past decade makes for a great soap opera. To precis 50 trillion words in Womenswear Daily: we were on the ropes, almost consigned to a footnote in history. But we were plucky and made an out-of-the-box comeback. Then, just as we were getting close to our happy-ever-after, recession struck. However, instead of giving up, we came out fighting with collections that had everyone cheering the noble British underdog. And around 2012 we got really good.
So, did we get better this week? To be totally honest, no, of which more later. But we did get very, very posh. The Ford show was a high-roller event from beginning to end. There was a ratio of around one champagne waiter per guest, and the casting was a no-expense-spared roll call of rarely-seen-in-London beauties. But it wasn't just the money that had been lavished: this was an event that felt special, from the plentiful supply of fabrics that are usually bestown by fairy godmothers, to the perfection of Charlotte Tilbury's hair and makeup.
London, for so long the fashion nursery slopes where talented kids practise before hitting the big time, is fast becoming the main event. As well as Ford's show, there was L'Wren Scott's fashion-theatre-lunch concept the previous day: a sit-down Sunday dinner of shepherd's pie, served in front of a collection in which perfectly honed silhouettes were lovingly highlighted and celebrated with gold bugle beading, pink leather, purple tweed shot with gold thread, and 23-carat arm tattoos. And to complete the 360-degree fanciness of the event, one could just glimpse, between the floorlength gowns and the pale, supple leathers the sight, on the other side of the catwalk, of Mick Jagger helping Daphne Guinness take the lid off her individual bottle of ketchup. Which is surely about as posh as it gets.
"We've gone very luxe," was the first thing Mulberry designer Emma Hill said to me backstage after the label's Claridges show. The balloon-popping sense of silliness that has always defined British fashion was less in evidence this week. Sometimes it worked brilliantly: at Mulberry, the top-drawer fabrics used for coats and the gleaming new frame that rings the changes between the old Bayswater and the new Suffolk felt like a logical stepup for a brand that has outgrown its homely beginnings and is taken seriously all over the world.
But I do worry that some designers are jumping the shark with the whole seriousness thing. Now, maybe I read too much into this stuff, but I felt as if the in-vogue show venue of the week – a glassy office block, the kind with a view of the Shard and dizzyingly fast lift – was indicative of a certain mindset. A kind of Oh-God-everyone's-looking-at-us-we've-got-to-be-serious designer's mindset, brought on by the new level of respect in which British fashion is held. This brings with it some unwanted baggage, in the shape of a drab cleverness that is neither exciting nor commercial.
When I spoke with BFC chairman Natalie Massenet last week, one of the designers she singled out for praise was handbag mogul Anya Hindmarch, whom, she said, "has set a new standard for thinking creatively about fashion week and finding the most innovative ways to exhibit product". On Tuesday morning, Hindmarch excelled herself with her best piece of handbag-theatre yet: 50,000 dominoes set up as a giant train set, which fell to reveal this season's Anya Hindmarch handbags concealedbehind them. It was extravagant and ambitious and must have cost a fortune – but it was also smartly ontrend (shades of Vuitton's £18,000 checkerboard dress) and brilliantly, laugh-out-loud silly. This is what London fashion should be about. We may be on the high-roller table, but we can still have fun.