The two first days of London Fashion Week sent a clear message: winter is going to be dark. With leather as every designers’ obsession, the shows are a myriad of variations around themes of science-fiction, paganism, apocalypse and mythological dystopias. The names are already evocative: Valkyrie (Jena.Theo), Totem (Aminaka Wilmont), Positronyx (Jean-Pierre Braganza), Pagan Poetry (Fyodor Golan), Meta.Morph (Una Burke) and so on.

While post-apocalyptic music is played on the runways (mixed with Wagner), the women watch films like Scorpio Rising and listen to Guns N’ Roses Black Leather. Black is sculpted à la  Blade Runner, for the replicants of the 10′s. Red make-up or details help to refine these dark edged dummies, halfway between motorcycle riders and horse-riders from the future. Hair stylist had a blast working on the shows this season: every show was a display of complicated valkyrie-like braids or extreme ponytails.

Puns and messy hair went with these soldiers of outer-places and outer-times. Designers also used military code (again, very reminding of Blade Runner) with embroideries as social insignia or futuristic shoulders nodding to the Power Dressing era. What else? Silkscreen, dark florals, burnt browns, Ballerina themes,  Elizabethian shapes… Two choices: be dark or be colourful. There is not much in between, except the Verushka-trend: imitating Gräfin Lehndorff is fashionable both on runway and on the streets, as the amount of wide-brimmed hats around the tents demonstrates.

London is indeed back to sci-fi, but also to typical British codes (see top-hats, tartan, peacock blues and references to the punk rise of 1977). 3D seems to be praised as well, with many sculptural exploits on dresses and shoes. Some shows referred to religious iconography, but most of them are going towards a pagan mysticism of fashion. New idols of paganism rise from show to show, wearing black leather and ghostly gauzes.

Photos Isa Jakob

A few favourites:

Una Burke

Belle Sauvage

Corrie Nielsen

Jean-Pierre Braganza

Krystof Strozyna

Jasper Conran