Fashion Fighting Poverty
Setting new standards: Oxfam’s first Fashion Week show. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
By BEL JACOBS
London Fashion Week kicked off with a twist on Thursday night: in a beautifully distressed Oxo Tower venue, super stylist Bay Garnett assembled a collection of outstanding outfits - using only secondhand stock from Oxfam
Stella Tennant demonstrates teddy boy chic. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
Fashion Fighting Poverty was Oxfam’s first ever fashion show on the London Fashion Week schedule, showcasing a precise selection clothes from the charity’s massive Milton Keynes and Batley warehouses. Supermodels Erin O’Connor, Stella Tennant and Cecilia Chancellor opened the show, sleek in androgynous suiting; designer Bella Freud and actress Clara Paget followed, in fluttering silk and a figure-hugging puff-sleeved dre
Using all the tropes associated with traditional trend-led fashion - the catwalk, the quirky venue, stunning models - Fashion Fighting Poverty was a moment of joyous anarchy that invited the fashion consumer to do something positive with their purchasing.
‘Digging around in charity shops and putting stuff together to make looks is what I do - and love doing,’ says Garnett, who is also Vogue contributing editor, consultant to Louis Vuitton and co-founder of cult magazine Cheap Date. ‘This show gave me something extra. It’s a really constructive project because Oxfam’s clothes make money for the greater good.’
The show encourages us to use our own creativity when we dress. Of course, we are not Erin, Stella and Cecilia - all of whom could make 1960s polyester look stunning - and we’re not all Bay, with her unerring eye for contrast and piquancy. But the fun, surely, is in finding out how close we can get.
All of the clothes worn at the show were previously owned and will be for sale on Oxfam’s online shop next week.
Sleekly androgynous: Erin O'Connor opens the Oxfam show. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
O'Connor closes the show in a wedding gown. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
A barefoot Clara Page. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
1960s crochet style at Fashion Fighting Poverty. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
A shimmering mermaid dress recalls 1980s glamour. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
Long collared brown suiting is set off by blue accessories. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
Flowing florals recall the 1970s. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
A belted herringbone trench coat worn with long boots. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
Graphic patterns and a leather mini pay homage to the 1960s. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
Actress Clara Paget in a flatteringly fitted dress. Picture: Bel Jacobs.
