Fashionistas cut cloth as cash beats creativity

Published on Saturday 21 February 2009 12:47

AS THE international 'fash pack' don their 'It' bags and Louboutin heels and strut off to London Fashion Week today, they will have a surprise in store. While organisers are doing their best to talk up the 25th anniversary of LFW, as it is known among fashionistas, a sobering subject is occupying designers' minds: the recession.

For the first time, thoughts are turning not to how designers can outdo their competitors' flamboyant catwalk shows, but if they can afford to hold a show at all.

Business is coming before handbags as the economic downturn hits the Louis Vuitton wallets of even the most affluent followers of fashion.

Scottish designers Scott Ramsay Kyle and Olanic are among leading talents who have decided to turn their backs on the catwalk in favour of more cost-efficient alternatives as designers are urged to prioritise cashflow over creativity.

Despite holding a successful catwalk show at Fashion Week in September, Kyle, a favourite of celebrities such as Moloko's lead singer Roisin Murphy, has filmed a video to showcase his 2009 Autumn/Winter collection this week.

Olanic, the Glasgow label set up by designer Niki Taylor, has also opted for a more business-savvy presentation to buyers.

Maria Grachvogel, a London-based designer who has been showing at London Fashion Week since 1995 and is beloved of Angelina Jolie and Yasmin Le Bon, is also holding a series of presentations at a members' club in Covent Garden.

Fashion experts say this is a sign of things to come as the recession hits even the most popular couture houses. Although initially designer labels held up better than their high street counterparts against the consumer slowdown, even the likes of Burberry and Chanel have now been hit. Both have been forced to cut hundreds of jobs since the beginning of the year.

Designers, particularly emerging young Scottish talents, are being advised by fashion and business experts to think more carefully about the long-term future of their companies, and cut back on pricey catwalk shows, which cost at least 20,000 to stage. They are also taking a more serious look at the designs themselves, producing more conservative 'investment pieces' which will last hard-pressed fashionistas for several seasons.

Four fewer catwalk shows will be staged this week compared with London Fashion Week in September, and that decline is only expected to deepen as the global economic conditions deteriorate.

Martyn Roberts, director of Vauxhall Fashion Scout, a company which helps emerging designers, including Kyle and Olanic, to target buyers, said the mood this year is extremely cautious.

"What we are telling them is to focus on what is important and not to over-extend themselves – don't plan to do giant shows this season but think how they are going to fund themselves over the next six to 12 months.

"Scott (Ramsay Kyle] has done a video and Olanic is doing a presentation rather than a full catwalk show, so they still have a presence at Fashion Week but they are not having to commit such big financial resources. We're also doing a collective show called 'ones to watch' for the first time. Some of the designers involved weren't ready to do their own shows in the current climate."

There has also been growing concern about the number of buyers attending Fashion Week this year as stores are cutting budgets. International buyers in particular could overlook London if the economy deteriorates and concentrate on more established events in Paris, Milan and New York.

Although they have become increasingly popular in recent years, the avant garde designers who exhibit in London are viewed as riskier in recessionary times as history shows shoppers tend to stick to classic pieces from long-established fashion houses such as Gucci and Prada. But there are fears for the economy if London Fashion Week is marginalised. It is an important contributor, usually generating orders of around 100m for UK designers.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has resorted to paying for buyers to fly in, spending 40,000 on airline tickets and accommodation to boost this week's shows. Johnson's office has targeted wealthy buyers from Dubai and other Middle Eastern countries in particular as the consumer slowdown bites hard in more traditional markets in America and Western Europe.

"It is essential we do everything we can to support the fashion industry so it comes through the downturn stronger, as well as exciting and innovative," Johnson said last week.

Tessa Hartmann, founder of the Scottish Fashion Council, says Scots designers should also consider using their limited budgets to fly buyers north of the Border to sustain the fashion and textiles industry here.

According to Scottish Enterprise, the industry currently sustains 17,000 jobs in Scotland and has a turnover of over 1bn.

Hartmann agrees that designers such as Kyle and Glasgow-based Deryck Walker, who has also decided not to repeat his successful show at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly this year, don't need to splash out on catwalk shows to grab buyers' attention.

"Why should a brand invest that amount of money when they have already got a good reputation? I would say take that catwalk money and invest it in your collection and business. There's very much a nervousness across the industry and only the strong will remain."

She also advises Scotland's army of young designers to consider the pressures on buyers when drawing up their designs. "Ultimately from a buyer's perspective, they are having to be very careful, less risky in their buying patterns. They have got to buy what the consumer wants, which means they are having to curb their appetite for avant garde, young designers out there. They are going for goods that are not going to be seasonally obsolete in a couple of months."

Hartmann added that some fledgling designers are choosing to work for more established labels during the recession as cash for their own businesses is hard to come by.

The Scottish Fashion Council, whose members also include Brian Rennie, creative director of designer label Gant, and Stacey Duguid, executive fashion director of Elle magazine, is set to announce it has signed a high profile sponsor to its New Generation Scots funding programme next month. The programme will offer grants to fashion graduates and rising stars to support their collections and business activities.

Scottish Enterprise has also decided not to repeat its From Scotland With Love initiative at London Fashion Week this year. The programme paired Scottish designers such as Sandra Murray, the couturier who designed the Queen's dress for the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1991, with traditional Scots textiles firms such as the luxury cashmere producer Alex Begg & Co. A spokeswoman for SE said the agency had chosen to concentrate on the export market this year, at events such as Tokyo Design Week.