London Fashion Week: One of the most eagerly awaited shows in London this week was Top Shop's catwalk debut, held in a marquee in Berkeley Square in Mayfair with a line-up of celebrity guests.
The phenomenally successful UK clothing giant, which made £100 million profit last year and which is the biggest sponsor of young designers in London Fashion Week, made retailing history as the first high-street chain to show on the official catwalk calendar.
It is to open a major new store in Dublin at the end of November in the former Habitat premises on St Stephen's Green.
The show presented its 200-piece Unique collection by the in-house design team led by Nick Passmore, a University of Lancashire graduate.
Clothes were young and sporty but had a cross-genera-
tional appeal with everything from crisp, white skinny-leg trouser suits to striped waistcoats worn with flippy skirts or slouchy shorts.
Big corset belts, a recurring feature in London this week, emphasised the waist on full-skirted black taffeta dresses or white judo jackets.
Parkas with bikinis, hooded mini dresses and some cheeky white tennis dresses were sunny and playful, and a key accessory was a metallic-heeled trainer.
The other giant of British fashion is Paul Smith, the country's most successful designer, and his collection shown in the Royal Horti-
cultural Hall yesterday was a gentle play on Edwardian dress, with a few cricket vests a token gesture to the country's recent success at the Ashes.
This was the designer's sweetest and dreamiest collection to date, with a winning line-up of exquisite handkerchief lawn and lace shifts, mostly in black or white, occasionally hiding a red silk slip underneath. Underwear as outwear is a well-worn fashion path, but in his hands it had fragility and strength, a winning combination.
Two of the new-generation designers showing in London yesterday were Emma Cook and Danish-born Peter Jensen. Jensen's choice of cleancut fabrics like windowpane checks, China prints and ginghams had a Nordic coolness and freshness, and his tailoring background showed in close-fitting jackets and nautical-striped pants.
But he showed a more winsome side, in an organza party dress tied with a bow and scattered with coloured sequins.
Emma Cook brings refinement to denim, softening a suit with a neat neckline or underpinning a strapless sheath with a striped knit.
Her leather skirts in furniture-brown prints brought to mind William Morris and the "greenery yallery" Arts & Crafts movement, while a buttercup yellow coat worn with zany Fair Isle knits in harmonising tonal stripes was sharp and modern.
