Fashion Philosophy Fashion Week Poland

Last week I took the Polski bus for a brief 6 hour ride to Fashion Philosophy Fashion Week  in Lodz, Poland's third largest city. Profiling the collections of emerging and established designers as well as student collections from the Lodz Academy of Arts, it was a pretty exciting four days with some great shows - and my first European fashion week. Designer highlights include: MMC Studio, Dawid Tomaszewski (check out the catwalk show HERE), Łukasz Jemioł, Mads Dinesen amongst many others. 

What I enjoyed the most and what quite surprised me was the amount of designers choosing non-models for their catwalk shows. Whilst using "real people" or the like is not a new idea, I was surprised by the amount of designers working in the manner as standard rather than  a cheap ploy for media attention or tokenistic hype. I would estimate at least a third of designers used "real people" in their shows, of a variety of ages and some variation in body types, though not so much ethnicity (read mostly white people). But the shows with the "real people" were usually the most enjoyable shows to watch, the models the most vivacious and desirable, even if the collections were not the most exciting. Seeing anorexic pre-teens with vacant looks on their faces stagger stupefied down a catwalk is so. fucking. boring. And not even very chic. And doesn't inspire me to spend my money with these designers. I mostly just wanted to throw hamburgers at them. Or do a fashion week food drop in the style of The Chaser. 

Below are some impressions from the fashion week and of Lodz (pronounced Woodz)!

Student shows from the Lodz Academy of Arts

Front Row Society

Some fashion blogger who is famous because he brings his dog  to  all the shows. Seriously. 

Andy

VIP Pooch

Jesus got a new stylist. Not bad.

Front Row Society fashion bloggers

THIS, IS LODZ.....

Historically Lodz's industry has been dominated by textile manufacturing and subsequently there are many disused  textile mills that are being renovated to support local business to revitalise the cultural centre. The Manufaktura complex is the biggest of the old textile mills recently renovated - and it is so stunning. I stayed at the hotel in Manufaktura - Andels. Looking at photos of the site pre-renovation and experiencing the architecture first hand is quite spectacular. The facade retains the buildings historic charm and the interior combines contemporary design with some of the original manufacturing equipment.

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A series of large cavities has been cut through each the four stories which gives a relief to the density of the space and multi-perspective view of the different levels, with the white surfaces being highlighted with light and projects images.

And ofcourse Fashion Week means lots of after parties. I went to a VICE party which was in this amazing venue, but it was full of fashion fuckwits. There were free drinks. Many. This made up for it.

Thanks very much to the FashionPhilisophy Fashion Week organisers for hosting me, and thanks Lodz, you're pretty special! X