Osman Yousefzada’s fashion week show swapped clothing for culture, inviting guests along to a screening of the film ‘Her Dreams Are Bigger.’ As the host of the panel talk following the event, Lucy Siegle shares her thoughts on whether exhibitions of this kind hold the key to the future of fashion week.
A coterie of designers with a progressive sustainability strategy continue to do all the heavy lifting at London Fashion Week. The innovations of upcoming creatives such as Phoebe English, Patrick McDowell and International Woolmark Prize winner Richard Malone set a precedent for those of us looking for leaders in the battle to keep fashion alive, while preventing species collapse and climate crisis.
However, the extent to which this has rehabilitated LFW is arguable, and probably beside the point. The only point for Extinction Rebellion, who again called for it to be put on ice, while something more appropriate was fashioned, is about appropriate responses to the climate emergency. If fashion truly declares a climate crisis, would 99.9% of the shows continue as if they were in the early 2000s based on abundance and commercialism, or would they actually start to look different?
I think we know. For my money the designer Osman Yousefzada – who is usually just known as Osman (as befits one of the top designers produced by the UK in recent times) – took the boldest stance. That is to say, he showed no clothes. Instead he invited a diverse audience and the fashion press to the Whitechapel Gallery on the Sunday of fashion week and showed the short elegiac and intense film ‘Her Dreams Are Bigger,’ about Bangladeshi garment workers response to ‘made in Bangladesh’ clothing. Who did they imagine wore these garments that they had made?