As his interview with Elektra Kotsoni in Vogue Business today details, Ashish Gupta has spent his career turning lemons into lemonade. He did it again this morning at what was only his second runway show in five years. The opportunity to present was offered by the British Fashion Council. However, the rub was that the only time available on the schedule was Monday at 9 a.m.: London Fashion Week’s graveyard shift.
Gupta made it come alive as only he can. As he told Vogue Business: “We got this 9 a.m. slot, and I was like, ‘Who wants sequins for breakfast?’ But then I thought, Actually, it’s like the walk of shame, isn’t it? Which is perfect in a way. I would love to see someone wearing a sequined dress at 9 o’clock in the morning.”
The show space was decorated with semi-deflated balloons and tired confetti. There was still a DJ working the room; however, as Gupta’s models set out, it became clear that eveningwear was now morning-after wear. The models chewed gum as they slouched past, some with alphabet refrigerator magnets and paper clips caught in their often scarecrow hair. A guy in a sequined sweater declaring himself “Pig” had freshly glittered welts of carpet burn on each knee; another in a sequined T-shirt declaring “Wow What a Shit Show” had lipstick lip prints on his thighs.
The laughs, craft, and art made for a potent cocktail. A Chanel-ish skirt and jacket in handmade sequined florals, black jeans with purple sequined tiger stripes, a deliriously pretty ruffled hem and sleeve sequined midi-dress, and looks in a pearly-pattern rainbow button fabrication triggered further bursts of endorphins to the fashion synapse.
Yet the morning after the night before can often be a downer. And Gupta did not spare the glare of the light of today. “Fashion not Fascism” read the back of one look. “Slut for Socialism” read the front of another. “The End Is Near” declared a banner held by one model only two-thirds of the way through the show. Said Gupta, “I just wanted now more than ever to say that it’s important to be visible, to be seen, to keep our space, and not to render or concede.” Independent, vertical, brilliant, true: Ashish epitomizes the creativity in design, entrepreneurial ingenuity, and political progressiveness that London fashion should stand for.
