Rags to riches

British fashion is becoming more hard headed

The Delevingne effect

WITH its whirl of frocks, models and million-dollar deals London Fashion Week has always been rather a closeted affair, accessible to few. Amateur fashionistas have had to wait for glossy magazines and blogs to tell them what to wear next. But at the second of London's biannual fairs, which ran from September 13th to 17th, that was starting to change. Around half the shows were live-streamed to the internet and TV channels with bulletins broadcast to commuters waiting at underground Tube stops. A free pop-up cinema screened fashion-themed films.

The changes seen at the shows are part of a wider effort to bring a businesslike approach to British fashion. London has long been feted as a breeding ground for brilliant designers. Many of them, including John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, trained at Central St Martins, a college known for turning out skilful originals. But a tendency to focus on art over business has meant that too many designers have failed to make the most of their critical acclaim. London Fashion Week has long been seen as the tiddler of the “big four” global shows, overshadowed by the spectacles in Milan, New York and Paris.

The BFC wants to change that. Since 2009, when it appointed Ms Rush (its first full-time chief executive) the council has pushed to make young designers more market savvy and encourage greater investment in fashion. In January it appointed a new chairman, Natalie Massenet, the American creator of Net-a-Porter, an online fashion shop that last year saw sales of 368m, as its chairman. Ms Massenet has said she wants to stop "business" being seen as a dirty word in fashion.

That may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Britain's fashion business adds about ￡21 billion to GDP. Oxford Economics, a consultancy, reckons that a good chunk of this is retail. But from designing clothes to selling them, fashion employs more people than any other creative industry in Britain. The designer end of clothes making has done especially well, growing 20% a year over the past decade. An increasing number of British designers have set their sights on overseas markets, especially in Asia. Paul Smith, for example, plans to open 20 new stores in China in the next five years. Attracting foreign talent, meanwhile, may soon be made easier with the introduction of a “London visa” for talented designers.

The renaissance of British fashion has been given a boost by some new ambassadors. The “Middleton effect”—a bump in sales attributed to the Duchess of Cambridge's fashion choices—has had a beneficial effect on British brands in America. A new crop of British models, among them Cara Delevingne, bestrides the international catwalk. Now Boris Johnson, the floppy-haired mayor of London, has joined the campaign. At a fashion shoot to promote British menswear this summer he could not remember who designed the suit he was wearing but his words were on message. “London is to the suit”, he said, “as Parma is to the Parmesan cheese”.