I’m high up in The Shard, the blade of glass that pierces the London skyline, and can see all four corners of the globe. Not out the window, but here, inside. At Fashion Press Day.
Fashion Press Day is different from Fashion Show or Fashion Re-See. Of that trio, you may think you know what a show is, but to be honest, those of us in the business are confused these days. Are we seeing next season, this season or something available by pre-order midway? Depends on the designer.
A Re-See is what we do after a fashion show. It means, literally, look again. Press Day used to occur after a six-month lag, to remind us what was about to go “in store” – before online sales gave “in store” a beyond literal meaning.
One thing that hasn’t changed is cake. It’s almost never offered at a Fashion Show but is usually offered at a Re-See and always offered at a Press Day. Treats are needed to convince people to turn up to see what they’ve already seen.
As for the location, when I first hit the fashion beat it covered low-lying areas of cheap industrial space: the East End of London, Sydney’s Surry Hills. That’s all luxury apartments now – not that the leading fashion companies care. They’ve gone up in the world. They’ve become anchor tenants, their names the kind developers use to lure accounting firms into their buildings.
MatchesFashion opens doors
And so to explain my being in The Shard. In 1987 a couple from South London called Tom and Ruth Chapman opened a store in what was, then and now, off the fashion track. They leveraged a single shop in Wimbledon to grow an empire which today has global sales in excess of £130 million ($215 million). These days, MatchesFashion is headquartered in the Shard.
On its biannual Press Day, Matches opens its doors – or more accurately, has someone escort you up in an express elevator. The amount of fashion product on show is a bit overwhelming, so I ask Natalie Kingham, buying director for MatchesFashion, to point out a few new labels she particularly loves.
“Coco,” she pronounces, then spells out KHOKHO as she picks up a basket. “We source these from … [I think she’s going to say Paris] a women’s collective in Swaziland.”
She moves on to opulent Ottoman mules trimmed with Madagascan raffia, then swerves in the direction of Finland. Soon it’s onto the Ukraine. Retailers today can’t just stock the labels you’ve come looking for. They have to tantalise, seduce, surprise.
For an up-and-coming designer, getting an outfit onto a mannequin at Press Day is a coup. Lots of people will see it, snap it, share it. Drawing my eye is a sleeveless dress, a sumptuous mix of colour and texture. I don’t recognise it. “African?” I ponder. “South American?”
“Australian,” Kingham responds. “Carl Kapp. He dresses Cate Blanchett. We do so well with him.”
So you see, at the top of London’s tallest building I get a clear view to the other side of the world.
