British supermodel Kate Moss is to design a collection for Topshop, it was announced yesterday at London Fashion Week, writes Deirdre McQuillan, Fashion Editor, in London.
The Croydon model, who made a rare appearance in the front row at the store's fashion show on Sunday in Holland Park, is said to be worth £50 million and her face currently fronts 14 major advertising campaigns worldwide.
Her collection for the high-street giant will be launched next spring in 308 stores nationwide, in international outlets and online. "Kate is Britain's biggest style icon. She has a great eye and is a regular customer," said brand director Jane Shepherdson. Their collaboration "epitomises British fashion", she said.
Topshop is a major sponsor of London Fashion Week through its "New Gen" scheme, now in its 10th season, supporting up-and-coming young designers. The venue in Holland Park has hosted a number of the week's shows, including that of the Swedish-born designer Ann Sofie Back yesterday. Her collection was almost an anti-fashion statement, with its tasteless black bras and pants underneath oversize fishnet or clear plastic tunics and what looked like skirts made of plastic trellis. Knees were bandaged, maybe a reference to the model at an earlier show in wooden platform shoes who toppled off the catwalk into the lap of the Harvey Nichols buyer.
Despite the crush around them, nobody crashed into Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan who attended Bella Freud's debut catwalk collection of the revived iconic 60s Biba brand now being stocked in Brown Thomas. Freud brings an individual, artful approach to colour and pattern and it showed in the cute black and white daisy printed suits and brown and black lurex cardigan coats and tunics. Dresses were a strong point and one in white lace had a look that was maidenly rather than nostalgic.
Another designer with a painterly eye is Betty Jackson, whose firm hand showed how the vogue for volume can be stylishly controlled.
Her swinging Prince of Wales smocks, buttercup-yellow trapeze dresses flecked with black sequins and snowflake print tunics were fresh, pretty and very flattering. Jasper Conran stayed true to form yesterday too; his British sensibility always has a certain French polish. It was expressed perfectly in a black silk dress with swingback pleats and a taffeta trench dress cut to the floor. Striped bandeau waists added a well-bred flourish to biker jackets and fluttery silks.