Anya Wilkinson – Statement Fashion

Lady M Presents came across one such designer who could just be the next big thing, during our trip to The Clothes Show London in June this year. Anya had a pop-up shop amongst many other fabulous new labels, but her collection stood out from the rest and showed real potential.

Anya Wilkinson, up and coming designer

The Anya Wilkinson label was created in September 2009, after Anya’s graduation with a Bachelor of Arts from London College of Fashion. Russian born Anya, had studied fashion prior to that at the College of Mode in Yekaterinburg, Russia and Nottingham College of Fashion as well as having placements with such established designers such as Jasmine di Milo and Roksanda Illincic. Anya also owned a small online boutique called Dressmania. She used to travel to countries such as China and Turkey to look for new, interesting garments. But she always knew that she wanted to design her own fashion collection and from there her label was born.

Inspiration

Anya works out of her studio off Kingsland Road in London, an area popular with upcoming fashion designers. She works in the same building as other young designers and finds it an encouraging and inspiring environment to work in. When asked about her inspiration for her collection Anya explained;

“For this collection it came from 3-D floral ornaments but it was also a little bit inspired by the flamboyant and vibrant Sex and the City style that was popular in recent times. I always get inspired by the process of creating. For example, I’ll come up with one small idea, I will develop it more. I’ll play around with it on the mannequin, look how the fabric folds. Out of one idea, I can create 10 ideas. It’s like a never ending process. I could never say exactly where my inspiration comes from, where it ends.”

The Collection

The Anya Wilkinson label consists of day and cocktail dresses, tailored jackets and stylish coats. Each piece in the collection is made using luxurious materials, that look tactile and inviting to the onlooker. Her use of deep colours, layering and strong textures really give her pieces that something special.

Foxy Dress, by Anya Wilkinson

The fabulous Foxy dress will be a hit for an end of summer wedding, or that Christmas party where you want to stand out from the crowd.

On trend for A/W 10, Anya Wilkinson

This camel coloured stylish coat will work fabulously for this A/W’s trends, smart enough for the office, cool enough for a shopping trip with the girls. Also bang on trend is this deep green velvet dress, sumptuous and plush, perfect for a winters party.

Statement Pieces by Anya Wilkinson

This is the dress that caught Lady M Presents eye at the Clothes Show Live London, a real flashback to Carrie Bradshaw’s heyday in Sex and the City. This dress is simply fabulous. Bold, attention grabbing and makes a statement.

Smart, Sophisticated coats, by Anya Wilkinson

This A/W catwalks saw the trend for strong tailoring yet sophisticated coats, capes and jackets. Anya already has pieces right on this trend. Prominent, clever tailoring is shown off with these fabulous coats.

A piece from Anya WIlkinson's Avant Garde Graduate Collection 2009

Anya’s favourite piece so far is from her Avant-Garde Graduate collection, the Shell Dress “Only knowing how much time it took me to create that piece and seeing the reaction of other people. It’s not just a piece of clothing, but, for me, a piece of art.”

Pieces from the Anya WIlkinson collection will be available to buy online at Not Just A Label, you can contact the designer directly there to discuss the collection.

What is next for Anya Wilkinson?

Looking ahead after a season that was feminine with 3-D floral style, Anya has described next season as ” more edgy, a more angled style”.  Anya plans to take her designs to another level. For the next season Anya wants to combine safe, femininity with a more avant-garde, out of the boundaries collection. “I finally started to work out what is right and what is wrong. From what I’ve realised so far, it’s important to believe in to yourself.”

The Anya Wilkinson Collection will feature at the Strand Palace Hotel in Central London, during London Fashion Week this September, an event run by Fashion Mavericks.

Zoë Boomer

Zoë Boomer created the Zoë Boomer label in April 2006, when a boutique in Ireland requested to see Zoe’s collection for their shop.  Zoë had two weeks to design and make a mini collection to show them and thankfully for her they bought every item.  She then spent the the next year making collections and one off pieces for the boutique and then the label started to progress and expand. Zoë had moved to London in 2002 to pursue her love of Fashion and Design and now creates her collections from her studio in Putney. During her degree course at the London College of Fashion, Zoë represented the UK at the International Student Design Awards 2004.

Zoe Boomer - Up and Coming Designer

Inspiration & Ethos

It was in art college that Zoë realised she had a flare for designing. Having always loved fashion, she excelled in every fashion project she worked upon and got accepted into London College of Fashion. After graduating Zoë got a job as a stylist assistant, for a top London stylist, styling for London and New York based fashion publications, working at London Fashion Week and styling for Natasha Bedingfield (now a dedicated fan of the Zoë Boomer label).

Zoë’s ethos is clear “I design for women who love fashion, are stylish, who appreciate fabric and quality. The label is known for its simplicity, and stable pieces that don’t date. For me inspiration comes often when I don’t expect it, generally I don’t always have a theme in mind – which probably goes against designers rules but it seems to progress and turn into a theme”.

Zoë designs garments she loves to wear; clothes that combine simplicity, style and luxury and transform effortlessly from daytime urban chic to sassy evening glamour. Sourcing fabrics from Italy and France, picking shades and textures she likes and then playing with them, draping them, to see how they hang which then leads to a design starting point.  Zoë explains that she finds inspiration from everywhere she might be, such as reading a magazine and an image jumps out, or in a shop. “Recently I was in Croatia for a holiday and my husband and I were sitting having a coffee in Dabrovinik old town, watching people walk past us and the buildings really inspired me”.

The Collections

Zoë uses the best silks and silk-chiffons to create collections that bring together romance, opulence and elegance but with unstructured minimalism. Zoë’s work is perfect for those looking to emulate unpretentious glamour but want to feel beautiful in amazing clothing made of luxurious fabrics. Her collections feature chic daywear all the way through to elegant evening attire.

Spring/Summer 2010

Day Dresses

Candy Maxi Dress – hitting the spot for this massive summer trend, the Candy Maxi dress combines hot summer prints with great length to give you an outfit that can take you from the beach to a garden party simply by teaming with great accessories.

Candy Maxi Dress, by Zoe Boomer

Leani Mini Dress – hit the pastels and soft tailoring trend this summer with this sublime double lined length pale blue silk dress. Perfect for summer weddings, cocktail parties or a night in the hip new bar in town.

Leani Mini Dress, by Zoe Boomer

This is one of Zoë’s favourites “they are stunning on and fit so well. I have yet to see it not look good on someone”.

Tops

Snow Drop navy, silk Halter neck – perfect to team with skinny jeans and some pale gold wedges for a structured but flowing, put together look.

Snow Drop Halter, by Zoe Boomer

Leani pearl white silk top – this is a great top to wear with some cigarette trousers or a grey pencil skirt – a sleek look for the office.

Leani White Silk Top, by Zoe Boomer

Evening Dresses

Stun the crowd with these gorgeous, simple but elegant edgy evening dresses

The Lucy Dress with swarovski crystals: Chiffon and swarovski crystal floor length strapless dress. Simply gorgeous, this flowing material will make you feel elegant and sophisticated.

The Lucy Strapless Dress, by Zoe Boomer

Lucy - Strapless silk chiffon dress.  Silk chiffon strapless floor length dress. Beautiful with long hanging necklaces or a Zoë Boomer vintage belt around the waist. It’s a WOW dress!

Lucy Floor length dress, by Zoe Boomer

A select number of pieces from the label can be bought in the boutique at www.zoeboomer.com and a full list of stockists can be found here.

Recently actress Laura Michelle Kelly (Sweeney Todd & Speed of the Plough with Kevin Spacey) donned ZB dresses at press calls and VIP events. The label is working tirelessly to make its mark on the international fashion scene with agents in London, Ireland, Vancouver and LA. The entire collection is hand stitched in Ireland, London & Liverpool and Zoë herself keeps a close eye on all aspects of production personally approving every single garment created.

Lady M Presents discussed with Zoë how she goes about developing a collection;

“Every collection needs a certain amount of tops, dresses, jackets etc. This helps to put the collection together and helps to narrow things down as sometimes I might have lots of ideas for tops, but need more dresses so I will either stop designing the tops or see how I can turn the concept into the dress. Sometime the designs won’t work in production and if I don’t like them when their being made up as a sample, I will cut them. The easiest way to decide what is featured is seeing how it sits with the rest of the collection. If something doesn’t go or you can’t wear it with anything else in the collection, it will be cut.

Predicting trends for me is a natural instinct which I guess as a designer, it is in your nature to think ahead. As we work a year ahead, you get very tired of what is out currently and start to think of something different. What is going on in society, movies, music all shape trends. When the war in Iraq first started there was a lot of military influences in collections. Also a very basic way of predicting is at present Maxi dresses are huge but next year they won’t be, hem lines for next summer will start to rise again.”

Whats the most rewarding part of your work? What is your greatest accomplishment so far?

“There are two parts of the job I find very rewarding, firstly when I go into a shop and see my clothes being sold beside some great labels that I love. I always get so excited and have a silent proud moment. The other is seeing my collection on the catwalk or on images after a photo shoot. It is so exciting seeing an idea in you’re head and then become real for everyone to see.

My greatest accomplishment I think this year anyway was being selected for the British Designer Collective Shop in Bicester village. It was such an honour to have my clothes sit beside labels such as Julien McDonald,  Todd Lynn, Emma Cook and my picture making it onto the Vogue website, that might not seem like that exciting but as a student in fashion I used to say one day I will make it into Vogue and to have my picture in it for me was a special moment.”

What’s next for Zoë Boomer?

There a lot of things in the pipeline for this up and coming label, Zoe Boomer will be a lot more accessible for everyone in the UK and will be in a lot more boutiques in London very soon. There are some exciting Zoe Boomer fashion videos that will be released throughout the year. Available to view on the website soon is the latest one, filmed at the Sex and the City 2 premiere.

We await the Zoë Boomer Autumn/Winter 10 Collection with eager anticipation. Zoë herself is very excited about it, “there are two garments I am so excited by and can’t wait to wear them. They are the Lu Lu Jacket and Feather grey cardigan – I know I’m going to wear these ALOT!”.

Zoë Boomer –  combining naked simplicity and purity of form with opulence and style.

Clothes Show London 2010 – Fashion Theatre

The key focus of the event is the Fashion Theatre’s fashion show. A 45 minute extravaganza of fashion, themed on cities around the world, inter-mingled with some amazing dancing in tune with the cities chosen. The choreography was well done and the music hit the spot, whilst the graphics and artwork linking it all together were superb. The show featured 415 different outfits mixing designer, couture, high street and boutique collections.

Clothes Show London

The show started in Toyko, Japan with an amazing dance display based on the film Kill Bill, then moving swiftly onto a catwalk of Cosplay style, Harajuku fun outfits that were loud and proud. Think neon pink, outrageous capes made of soft toys and in your face colour clashes.

Tokyo Collection, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

Taking a flight across to New York city next, with a great hip hop opening sequence. The runway was then awash with denims, playsuits, some satin soft tailoring and a lot of 80′s attitude and fringing.

New York Collection, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

Then the dancers were back with a great jive dance to Gramophonedzie’s “Why don’t you”, with the girls in floral tea dresses and the boys in check and plaid, with a homage to Sex and the City. The catwalk became a parade of elegant evening dresses that could be straight from the sample closet of American Vogue’s office. Gorgeous flowing maxi dresses, teamed with sequinned capes, thigh skimming lamé dresses and the gentlemen in elegant lounge suits, with this season pastel tone shirts. Maxi dresses in floral prints were teamed with maxi clutches in deep purples and teal snakeskin stack heels.

New York Collection, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

New York Collection, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

From New York we took the Cunard cruise to Rome, where the boys wore Dunhill short suits and pale crisp linen suits. They looked suave and sophisticated and were accompanied by elegant ladies in divine dresses. Goddess style one shouldered crepe dresses in black, mauve and dusky pink embellished with vintage brooches and teamed with suede shoe boots were the talk of the town in Rome. Dresses had fringing, touches of leather and bold shoulder pads. Stars of the show was a Phoebe Thirlwall knitted dress and menswear that emulated the style of Katie Eary.

A Taste of Rome, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

Keeping it in Europe we moved to Paris, home of chic fashion houses. The theme here was layers of black and embellished headpieces. The Parisian style featured sleek tailoring, grey checked short suits for the women, sleek grey pencil skirts with crisp white blouses with ruffles and skinny legged trousers for the men. The monochrome theme was fresh and sophisticated. Followed by a beautiful ballet dance to the soundtrack to the classic french film Amelie. Then onto a Moulin Rouge inspired theatrical catwalk, simply exquisite, powerful striking red dresses, layers of chiffon, lace and tulle. Dramatic and stunning.

Parisian Chic, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

Moulin Rouge Inspired, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

Finally we came home to London, to Carnaby Street and Brick Lane to be exact. The collection was fabulous – tailored pinstripe playsuits, loose fitting jersey, mustard ruffle tops. We went back to the 1960′s with black velvet shift dresses, sunglasses and knee high boots, whilst the men wore their suits and casual jackets with effortless soft tailoring before Brick Lane turned a little sci-fi and brought us into the 1980′s. With neon pink, quilted jackets, embellished capes and courageous menswear.

London's Carnaby Street, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

London's Brick Lane, Clothes Show London Fashion Theatre

The only thing that was missing was a commentary of the outfits and the trends, that would have taken the fashion show to the next level. However top tips and discussions on trends could be found at the Style Stage. Hosted by the ever fabulous Caryn Franklin and The Telegraph’s Fashion Director Hilary Alexander, the Style Stage brought tips for how to wear the latest Spring/Summer Trends and what to look for as Autumn/Winter collections hit the shops.

Caryn Franklin at the Style Stage, Clothes Show London

The three day event also included The British Textile Design Awards on Saturday 26th June, Announcement of the Young Makeup Artist of the year on Sunday 27th June and the Young Accessory Designer of the Year also on Sunday at the Style Stage. Clearly showing that the Clothes Show London celebrate and support new and emerging fashion talent.

The Clothes Show London

Over 200 boutiques and brands were showcasing the event including Little Mistress, St Barths Couture and up and coming Russian born British designer Anya Wilkinson.

Full listings of the outfits from the Fashion Theatre will be available at www.clothesshowlondon.com