LFW 2025: Fashion or fashion?

By Erin Deborah Waks

I have a lifelong love of lowercase ‘f’ fashion. I’ve been to a very small number of fashion shows in my time - those held annually by Stylist magazine, a few small charity fashion shows and the infamous DUCFS held at Durham University which you’d be forgiven for thinking was actually the A-list event of the year given all the hype surrounding it. I even got exclusive online access to a Paris fashion show that took place during the pandemic while I was Fashion editor at Palatinate newspaper. 

I loved all of them. 

But put me in front of the ingenuity of Balenciaga or outlandish colours of Alexander McQueen or Vivienne Westwood and, frankly, I have little to no idea what’s going on. I guess I wish I had that love of capital ‘F’ fashion.

For me, I guess, fashion is important because it’s a way in which I can express myself. When asked last week whether I dress for men, other women, or myself, I found myself answering, ‘I dress for my 12-year-old self, who always dreamed of wearing heeled boots with pretty dresses and designer coats.’ 

That, in a nutshell, is my style; I wear the things the younger version of me saw in magazines and hoped she would one day be old enough - and stylish enough - to pull off. I get far more pleasure out of a little girl staring at my handbag and skirt than a man peering down at my cleavage.

Last week was London Fashion Week and, as many fashion-lovers do, I spent many an hour reading and re-reading Vogue, scouring the web for fashion inspiration and copying outfit formulas trending on the Big Smoke fashion scene. 

I like to have my finger on the pulse, my eye on the target, of what’s what in the world of Fashion. Helps me with my own sense of fashion.