Key Trends from London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week is always a highlight in the fashion calendar, and this year was no exception. With classic houses showcasing their work alongside fresh young designers, there were hundreds of cutting edge new looks in jewellery, accessories and ready-to-wear clothing.

To help you discover the best looks of the week, we’ve picked five of this year’s key trends and assembled a handy guide to help you introduce haute looks to your everyday accessorising.

We’ll be looking at a few different designers over the coming months, so if you have something you want us to cover, just let us know.

Jonathan Saunders

Who they are: Jonathan Saunders is well known for his love of print and colour, and cut his teeth working for fashion giants Alexander McQueen, Pucci and Chloe. This year’s Fashion Week collection, which he described as being about “womanhood, pin-ups and British icons” featured splashes of high-shine turquoise, blue and black.

How to recreate it: Saunders’ work, inspired by artists like Francis Bacon, has a warmth to it that would be best accentuated with rich golds. Gold craft wire can be used with highlight colours (such as the turquoises and blues seen in the collection) for a more subtle look, or gold beads for something a little more bold.

Our products:
Gold craft wire
Gold beads

Preen

Who they are: Preen, a British label, made their name with fairytale pastels and chiffons, but this year their LFW show owed more to punk than Victorian style-romanticism. Inspired by cult filmmaker Derek Jarman, Adam Ant and Siouxsie Sioux, bright ketchup reds dominated their designs.

How to recreate it: Although bright reds are generally better as a highlight colour, punk is all about excess, and using red, blue or black jewellery would make a great medley. There’s also scope for colour experimentation; oxbloods and other deep red beads would work just as well as the bright reds seen at Preen.

Our products:
Red beads
Oxblood beads

Burberry

Who they are: Burberry are possibly best known for their beige tartan and iconic trench-coat, and are often seen as somewhat old-fashioned. Despite this, their recent collections have been cool and quirky and have totally belied common perception of the brand. This year was no exception, the key look being cute, girlish hearts.

How to recreate it: If you’re looking to translate the heart look to your jewellery and not your wardrobe, there are a number of heart-shaped beads that can be used to make necklaces or bracelets. If you’re going for the Burberry look, coloured beads that match either the base colour of your outfit or the colour of the hearts would look great as a highlighting accessory, and would really help to pull everything together.

Our products:
Heart shaped beads

Matthew Williamson

Who they are: Matthew Williamson is best known for his long-running collaborations with supermodel Kate Moss and for his love of vibrant colours. This year, his Fashion Week collection featured iridescent silvers and deep blues, mirroring the “galaxy” trend most widely known from cult clothing brand Black Milk.

How to recreate it: The silvery, starry hues of the collection can easily be emulated with silver craft wire, upon which deep sky-blue or navy beads can be threaded. Conversely, brighter colours like canary yellow can be used as a highlight. This has the added benefit of tying in with the space theme, and adds a little bit of sunshine to an otherwise muted ensemble.  

Our products:
Navy beads
Canary yellow beads

Mary Katrantzou

Who they are: Mary Katrantzou is a Greek designer whose bright, intricate prints have made her a huge success. Stocked by international retailers such as Topshop and Matches, Katrantzou’s designs sell out in hours. While her usual designs are vibrant and bright, this year’s Fashion Week offering was monochrome; blacks, whites and subtle greys.

How to recreate it: Monochromes are great to accessorise; they’re so versatile, almost anything goes. A monochrome look can be complemented with similar tones; a high-shine, satin-look black or grey bead would look great. If you want a more bold and daring look, monochrome also lends itself to splashes of colour. Here, you could incorporate elements of other designers; the turquoises of Jonathan Saunders, the bold reds of Preen.

Our products:
Mixed satin-look beads

What did you think of this year’s London Fashion Week? Do you like to incorporate high-fashion trends into your jewellery making? Let us know what you think by tweeting us or telling on Facebook!