Fun Facts: Fashion Week
In September, designers and celebrities from all over the world will arrive in New York and London for days of shows, exhibitions and presentations, all dedicated to fashion. It is time for Fashion Week!
There are 4 big fashion weeks in the calendar each spring and autumn, and they always take place in this order: New York, London, Milan and Paris.
Each is known for focusing on different styles. New York is known for more sporty looks, London for edgy, design, Milan for over-the-top and stylish looks, and Paris for haute couture (or high fashion).
With over 50 catwalk shows featuring work from more than 120 UK designers who are all eager to show off their exciting designs, London Fashion Week is important for anyone with an active interest in style. Over £100 million worth of purchases will be made, making London Fashion Week an exhibition that is definitely for people with money to spare!
New York's Fashion Week is the oldest, with the first show happening in 1943, as a way for American designers to show off their work, and to give Paris, a city long-known for its style, some competition. The newest of the four is London. There are 200 shows during New York Fashion Week with about 30 models per show. With so much action, it's no surprise that more than $532 million is spent by people seeing and taking part in New York's fashion week.
With fashion sure to be a hot topic over the next couple of weeks, here are our favourite fashion phrases to help you ensure that you can follow everything happening at New York's and London's Fashion Weeks:
In/out of style – As a biannual event that’s attended by a lot of influential people in the style world, London Fashion Week will determine the hottest upcoming trends (IN style) and what is now no longer deemed cool (OUT of style). Be prepared to hear these a lot!
Faux pas – Originally from French, and relevant to a lot of situations outside of the world of fashion, this helps describe a situation where someone has made an embarrassing style mistake and not dressed well. Wearing socks with sandals is a famous fashion faux pas, and will be one that everyone at London Fashion Week will be sure not to make!
Dress to kill – To dress up in strikingly attractive clothes. Everyone attending Fashion Week will be hoping to outdo one another with their choice of clothing, so expect to see a lot of people making a big effort to dress to their best.
Fashion victim – Someone who is obsessed with following every fashion fad, to an extreme extent. Sadly, fashion is a very expensive hobby to have, and someone who spends a ridiculous amount of their money on style fads is likely to be looked down on as a slave to fashion. With its wide variety of styles and big names on show, Fashion Week is the dream event for all fashion victims.
As well as being two of the most fashionable cities in the world, London and New York are also home to five of our schools: Covent Garden and Leicester Square in London, and Midtown, Empire State Building, and SoHo in New York.
Are you a fashion victim? Do you follow what's in style? Be sure to share your fashion experiences in the comments below!
Glossary:
An active interest - To participate in activities based around something you are interested in
Biannual - An event that occurs twice a year
Fad - Something that is very popular for only a very short period of time