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Manchester is a city so associated with grey skies that the City third kit this season features raindrops. But this week the colour was dialled up to 10 as Manchester fashion week – the first in 10 years – kicked off.
Drew Kent, a designer who trained at Central Saint Martins and whose clothes have been worn by comedian Joe Lycett and the Scissor Sisters, was the first show on the schedule, showing in a large market and event space in the city’s Castlefield district. Focusing on Kent’s trademark crochet knitting, the collection was a riot of pinks and purples, featuring oversized hats, giant sequins and fluffy cardigans. “It’s an extension of my wardrobe,” said Kent ahead of the show. “It’s all about my childhood and me dressing up like Action Men in Barbie’s clothes.” With New York fashion week set to start on Thursday, such pronouncements could be seen as an appetiser for fashion editors.
The timing is notable, coming just a week before London fashion week and shortly after Laura Weir, the new CEO of the British Fashion Council, announced a wider push to shift the focus of the industry away from London. Weir has initiated City Wide, a series of talks and events around the country open to the public in the run-up to London fashion week, with Manchester featured, along with Liverpool and Newcastle. There are additional events in Manchester this week – one at Vivienne Westwood’s store and another with Manchester evening wear designer Nadine Merabi.
Gemma Gratton, the executive producer, says this year’s Manchester fashion week is very much a “proof of concept”, one she hopes will put the event on the radars of the powers that be. Shows were attended by industry figures, fashion writers, educators and students, and some events were open to the public. Unlike London fashion week, this event has been financed entirely by private sponsorship.
“We approached [local government] three times and [received] ‘wet promises’,” Gratton says. “I can understand why certain institutes and organisations in the city are taking a more measured approach, because they had their fingers burned last time with other organisers. It’s just showing them that we’ve got a real, solid team of highly professional organisers and people in industry who are going to deliver an exceptional event.”
The previous iteration of Manchester fashion week was sponsored by Missguided, one of the fast-fashion brands that call the city home. That’s all changed this year, with a new take focused around sustainability. Kent’s collection was made from sustainable materials. “We’re not accepting any sponsorship from people who don’t align with our own business values,” says Gratton. “We’ve been approached by two of the really big fast-fashion brands in the city – one of them has been absolutely banging our door down. We need that money, but we can’t accept it.”
Instead, the focus is on a sustainable future for the fashion industry geared around a programme of events that incorporates catwalk shows such as Kent’s but also workshops and talks covering greenwashing, streetwear, and Manchester’s place in culture and music. London fashion week is not a competitor, says Gratton: “We want to collaborate with them. London’s more the glitzy glamour runway. We want to put a strong emphasis on education.”
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Still, Manchester’s fashion heritage is worth the spotlight of a fashion week. John Higginson, CEO of media partner Eco Age, points to Private White VC, the outerwear brand that has roots dating back nearly 100 years, as well as Manchester’s 200-year-plus involvement in the textile industry. There are, of course, a lot of problems within that history – one workshop will look at colonial legacies in fashion’s supply chain.
Higginson says the event is also a space to showcase a different take on style from that in the capital. “It’s a celebration of all the creativity in the north of England,” he argues. “In London, we tend to not really get dressed up for a lot of things – but you go to Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester: every Friday night people dress up to the nines, and it’s really great to see.”
Wayne Hemingway, who founded the popular 1990s label Red or Dead, grew up in “the satellite of Manchester”, he says, and the city provided a grounding for where he went next: “It was a place that helped me to understand culture and get into the creative industries. I would not have become a designer without having a city on my doorstep like that.”
Hemingway, who is participating in a talk about recent cultural moments, has reservations about how much impact Manchester fashion week can have, especially with London fashion week already being so established in the UK. “There isn’t the time for the fashion editors to do it; buyers haven’t got that budget to go around the world,” he says. “But there is a positioning in the media for Manchester to be a fashion city of importance.”
Kent, who is from Liverpool, struggled during his time studying at Central Saint Martins. “Sometimes I felt like the only working-class person in that building,” he says. In the end, he moved home after graduating. “It’s just far too expensive to be a designer there,” he says of London. He believes Manchester fashion week could be a platform for other creatives like him: “It’s showing that you don’t have to live in London – you don’t have a massive amount of funds behind you to create and be original with what you design.”
