All the drama and the glamour of the fashion week have now come to an end. The classic American styles of New York, the funkiness of London, the jaw dropping glamour of Milan and the exquisite couture of Paris has left us chomping at the bit for the low down of next seasons hottest trends. Wait no longer my friends, for S/S 09 is here and the top trends for next spring will be:

• Colour - Think soft pastal tones of pinks, peaches and oranges, jazzed up with dashes of jade green and gold - as seen on the catwalks of PPQ, Balmain and Valentino.

• Ruffles - If girly frills arn’t your thing then you may want to stear clear of this trend - however it was everywhere. From the catwalks of Chloe, Basso & Brooke and Bora Aksu, we see swathes of material flowing around the silhoutte, very pretty and very spring time.

• If you like to be a little more daring cut out and see through clothing will be a big trend next season. If you dare to bare, take inspiration from the runways of Henry Holland, Laura Lees and PPQ, with cut out peep holes and sheer fabrics - brave indeed but might be a bit nippy.

• If you loved the 80’s then good for you, because it’s back. To counter-balance the pretty frills of last seasons femininism that refuses to budge, 80’s rock glamour and punky vibe screams fun and fancy free. The catwalks of PPQ, Emma Bell, Ashish, Miss Sixty, Gucci and Moschino all flirted with the 80’s to varying button covered creations. Fun fun fun.

Which trend do you think you will be most likely to wear come spring?

Photography by Nick Stovey.

Well you know what they say? All is fair in love and war, but what about fashion?

With fresh news, it appears that the House of Valentino may not be as luscious and darling as we all first thought. It was reported today, chief designer at Valentino, Alessandra Facchinetti, who took the helm after Valentino retired in sept. 2007,  was sacked after the latest collection (S/S 09) was displayed in Paris. Fair enough you think, people are allowed to hire and fire whom they like, but to do it via the press? That IS pretty shameful.

This news is so fresh that even wikipedia hasn’t been updated yet and apparently the gloves are more than off at Valentino. Facchinetti was scorned by long time Valentino business associate and ex boyfriend, Giancarlo Giammetti after the show stating, “to pretend to transform and revolutionise the Valentino style is a utopia which is a loss from the start.” It appeared that Facchinetti hadn’t done enough to evoke the Valentino feel upon the catwalk with the man himself even stating, with formidable disdain that “there is an existing archive with thousands of dresses where [a designer] can draw and take inspiration from to create a Valentino product that is relevant today. It is a shame that [Facchinetti] didn’t feel this need.”

And with that she was promptly and publicly sacked.

It’s one thing to be annoyed at someones work, but to openly declare that they haven’t supported your legacy maybe a bit much. But then it’s your legacy so I suppose you wanna get that stuff right? Also this isn’t the first time Alessandra has been fired from a major deisgner brand, the young designer left Gucci after just two seasons.

This unconventional and down right rude sacking of this young female designer has led to rumblings of sexism and  discontent within the fashion world, instigating that it’s near on impossible for young females to succeed in this male dominated industry.

Hopefully this is just an ugly isolated incident that will be a warning to others before they jump aboard the Valentino ship, however if the sexist rumours and whispers are true, it is actually a very sad day for fashion design the world over.

I am green with envy over Caroline, the glamorous winner of the koodos / handbag.com competition. Not only did she get invited along to London Fashion Week, to sit on the front row of a couple of London’s most sensational catwalk shows but she became a designers muse for the day. As part of her prize, she got to pick an outfit from one of four of the hottest up and coming designers who featured in koodos’ Vauxhall Fashion Scout online Boutique. The lucky thing, especially liked the look created by the seductive and highly stylish designers, Harriet’s muse.

Harriet’s Muse is famous for tailor fitting unique corsets and dresses, so not only did Caroline win a beautiful silk dress created by the hands of the immensely talented designers Cheryl Partington and Craig Spellar; she got to have it made to exactly her size. Guarantees no ‘friends’ borrowing your favourite dress hey?

Here are few pics of her having it fitted. Are you jealous too? If so go check out Harriet Muse’s boutique on the first floor of Kingly court, just off Carnaby street. Plus, you could always enter a koodos competition too and maybe next time, YOU could win something as fabulous.

Exciting news people.

As koodos gears up for London Fashion week, it was with great success that Vauxhall Fashion Scout held a salon evening last night, with the organisers John Walford and Martyn Roberts working closely with koodos, for up and coming fashion designers, a number of whom are going to be showing their collections at VFS during London Fashion week next month.

As part of our presence at London Fashion Week in September as a sponsor of the off schedule catwalk event Vauxhall Fashion Scout, koodos  has established a mentoring program, again working closely with VFS, for young designers and last night was the first furor into the the new initiative.

Our hugely experienced CEO, Miriam Lahage, was the guest speaker at the evening, held in the beautiful Craft Central building in Clerkenwell, speaking to the assembled designers about her experience within the buying arena.

Miriam gave some invaluable tips and hints on how a young designer can prosper in a very challenging market. Not only did she offer advice on how to deal with buyers, but also how to deal with the current economic downturn, insight into how designers get stuff out there and more importantly get seen.

A cosy event, with Vauxhall Fashion Scout designers (and a few designers just after some advice) in attendance, all said how helpful and insightful the evening was.

We are all super excited about our mentoring scheme and as a result we will be announcing which designers we will be featuring in a special Boutique on the koodos website.

The Boutique will be open during London Fashion Week and in Miriam’s own words “It isn’t easy for young designers to break into new outlets and also money is tight for them. We have created the Boutique to help the designers as well as enable the fashion loving public to access some breathtaking collections that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them.”

More exciting news about Vauxhall Fashion Scout, the Boutique and London Fashion Week coming soon - watch this space.

Photography by Nick Stovey