Designer Daniel Fletcher on opening London Fashion Week SS23

This season’s London Fashion Week is set to be like no other in the event’s almost four-decade long history - it will take place during the official period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II.

When news of the Queen’s passing broke on Thursday evening, fashion houses including Burberry and Raf Simons were quick to call off their highly-anticipated shows. The British Fashion Council (BFC) has rushed to reschedule any events that were originally due to take place on Monday 19 September - the day of the Queen's funeral.

Designer Daniel Fletcher was unsure whether his own SS23 catwalk would be able to go ahead, but it is the first show of the London Fashion Week schedule, running with a few stylistic adjustments on Thursday 16 September.

Fletcher founded his eponymous brand in 2015, as a fresh graduate of Central Saint Martins BA Menswear course. Three years later, he was named one of Drapers 30 Under 30 alumni, before clinching the title artistic director of menswear at Fiorucci and reaching the final of Netflix's reality show competition Next in Fashion in 2020.

London Fashion Week runs between 15-20 September. Fletcher, 31, tells Drapers why the event will be an unprecedented experience for the industry.

What are the influences behind your SS23 collection?

I’ve lived in London for 10 years [having moved to the capital from the North West of England to study BA Menswear at Central Saint Martins] and I was really thinking about what that means to me, and the impact that it has had. I also thought about the people and cultures that have made it what it is: the bankers in the City, the Pearly Kings and Queens of Soho, the punks of King’s Road [the site of Vivienne Westwood's boutique in the 1970s]. All those people that have contributed so much to the history of London and made it what it is today. That’s where the collection comes together in this melting pot of something that's very British and English and a celebration of the city.

Are there any specific silhouettes that you have focused on?

You can see the influence of the 1980s, with strong shoulder padded suits. There's a lot of tailoring that, in some ways, is quite Savile Row, in particular with the Prince of Wales checks that feel more traditional, but which takes on this more 1980s flare due to the strong shoulders, and double breasted cuts and wide trousers. There are also some mini skirts and big fake fur stoles that trail on the floor, which are a combination of being influenced by the 1990's, and quite mid-century aristocratic as well.

How has the Queen’s passing impacted you as a designer?

I think the initial response was [that] everyone was shocked, and trying to figure out if it was appropriate to go ahead, what was the right thing to do [in order] to be respectful. Making that decision kind of was quite a tough one. Obviously, London Fashion Week is a business event. It's something that we've ploughed so many hours of work and so much money into. And it's a really important moment within that season to show our collections - from both a marketing and sales perspective. Cancelling it would have been really devastating for us as a brand, so I'm really glad that we are going ahead and I think it is the right thing to do, because if you look at the Royal Family, they have a very close connection with British fashion - includin Queen Elizabeth II Award for Design [which the Queen launched at Richard Quinn's show in 2018]. As long as we're doing it in a respectful way, going ahead is the right thing to do.

On the whole, London Fashion Week is going ahead in full force. We had a really great call with a lot of other [London Fashion Week] designers and we all were kind of unanimous in our feeling that this is a really important business event for us and that we all should support each other and proceed as one.

What type of changes did you have to make to your show?

As the opening show, I feel a tiny bit of pressure, because we're really setting the tone for London Fashion Week. We will have a moment of silence at the start of the show [at 18:30], and then the first look that we're sending out is a black mourning suit with a black armband made from British wool, sent out on the runway as a tribute to the Queen. [The suit] has a wide leg trouser and it’s double breasted. The way we that we've styled it is something more sombre than what we would normally do, but it really feels like the right thing for this collection.

Which London Fashion Week shows are you personally excited to see?

I'm very excited to see Chopova Lowena. I went to Central Saint Martins with [founders] Emma [Chopova] and Laura [Lowena], who run the brand and it's their first runway show.

I always stop by at KNWLS as well. [Founder Charlotte Knowles and I] also did our Art Foundation course at Kingston University together. I think Chet Lo is doing some brilliant things - I'm very excited to see that as it’s his first solo show [after Fashion East] and I'm sure it's going to be pretty major.

Which trends are you predicting to be big at London Fashion Week?

I think we're going to see a slightly more sombre mood than we would have normally, given recent news. But I still think that that London is such a creative place. The emerging talent here really leads the way in terms of new ideas, and so I always look forward to seeing what everyone's doing.

What are some of the sustainable aspects of the new SS23 collection?

This season is my most sustainable collection, we're always striving to do more. I've used only deadstock fabrics.

We worked with a company called Nona Source, which sources fabrics from LVMH fashion houses that would be sitting in warehouses and ultimately might never have gotten used, or might have ended up going to waste. We've made the entire [SS23] collection out of those. I really wanted to show what is possible using only deadstock source materials because I think there is a misconception that there are limitations or you can't do something as refined [while] using recycled or deadstock materials.

Is working with deadstock fabric likely to impact the quantity and pricing of your products?

The limited quantities of fabric mean that we can only produce what is available - and that is something that's important to me. I don't want to be producing so many things that could then go into storage or a landfill. We're just producing the amount of clothes that we need. I think it also makes the pieces more special. We do a lot of made to order pieces now [including occasionwear, which retails from £260 for a satin halter top to £850 for a tailored leather jacket], which is also part of our sustainability efforts, so that we don't waste excess fabric.

I don't think [the product prices will be affected]. Nona Source’s prices of the fabrics [up to 70% off the original wholesale price] is within the [pricing] realms of the Daniel W Fletcher collections.

The SS23 collection is genderless, how did this influence the design process?

We’re styling [the mini skirts] with big overcoats and shirts for the guys. When we were casting [for models], it was regardless of gender. Some looks might start out as for a woman and then it might end up on a man. I think that’s the way that people approach clothing.

There's been so much progression with people's attitudes towards gender binary. However, there are still a lot of people who aren't there yet and I think we have to be conscious of that. For me and for my customers, [the gender binary] is not something that we're even considering now. You go onto the [Daniel W Fletcher] website and you look at an item and you can see a boy modelling it and a girl modelling it - they're the same clothes. It might take a while for [older generations] to catch up a little bit, but I certainly think that, going forward, we will see more positive change in that sense.

How the fashion industry is reacting to Queen Elizabeth II's passing: