Chalayan A/W 2020 London Fashion Week Women's

Mood board: Like Chalayan’s A/W 2020 menswear show last month, the designer looked to our human connection to land, referencing animist Indigenous Australian tradition. When Indigenous Australians walk the earth they create ‘songlines’ or a ‘dreaming track’ – music that traces their ritualistic journey. His collection traced the route of the body through draping and cutting, and featured leather tailoring, elegant cropped capes, fluid black dresses with startling flashes of red and loose trousers in an abstract graphic jacquard.

Team work: Chalayan has long been the master of show concept surprise and for A/W 2020 he composed his own version of a ‘song line,’ collaborating with Mark Moore and Dan Donovan on a series of tracks which were performed live at the show. The musical accompaniment shook up the show schedule and bought a sense of theatricality and daring to London, once known for its avant-garde take on fashion.

Scene setting: London is the second city on the seasonal show schedule, and now more than ever guests are considering their own unsustainable footprints left on the earth as a result of travel. Last week The New York Times reported that buyers and brands attending fashion week shows generate 241,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year. For his A/W 2020 show backdrop, Chalayan projected the Googlemaps route tracing his walk to his office. We should all think more about keeping our feet firmly on the ground.