LONDON — As if the stress of putting together a fashion show wasn’t enough, this season designers also had to cast their votes in a snap — and divisive — general election the day before London Fashion Week Men’s began.
Despite the surprise result — a weakened Conservative Party, a hung parliament and a humiliated prime minister who was left scrambling to make a deal with Northern Ireland’s right-wing Democratic Unionist Party — many designers chose to focus on the positive.
“The youth turnout was awesome. We have hope, we are engaging in politics, and voting for a 68-year-old man, a great guy,” said Phoebe English, referring to Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, which gained 32 seats in the election.
Speaking on the sidelines of her presentation on Friday, where models dressed in workwear-inspired clothing played with lumps of clay, English said her generation doesn’t want “robots, spin doctors, or politicians. We want human beings. I must have cried four times this morning, because people are using their voices to say they want change.”
Phoebe English’s men’s spring 2018 presentation.
Courtesy Photo
Although the official numbers won’t be published until later this week, an ITV poll reported that 72 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, compared
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