Answered: Your Burning Questions About LFW

I moved to London six years ago during London Fashion Week with a dream to work in a fashion industry and to be invited to the shows one day. Fast-forward to the present day and I have one MA in Photojournalism, two years of working at ELLE UK magazine and three years of running JULIALUNDIN.COM full-time on my CV. Let’s leave the details of how all of those happened for the future posts and concentrate on LFW today. If you, like me, are interested in fashion and would like to attend a fashion week, I am happy to share my knowledge and advice with you guys.

Last week’s LFW was my 4th year and 8th season of being part of it. During those seasons a lot has changed in the fashion industry. LFW used to be held in the Somerset House but has moved to Brewer Street car park 3 seasons ago. (I am yet to meet a person who likes this change). But probably the biggest change was the worldwide ‘rise of the bloggers’ who are now holding a substantial amount of seats at the shows. I have attended LFW as a ‘magazine representative’ before and as a blogger now and have experienced first-hand this switch in the industry.

Now, let’s cut to the main point of this conversation. A few weeks before fashion weeks begin I receive a lot of emails and direct Instagram messages from you guys asking me various questions about it. So I decided to answer some of these questions here and hopefully they will be useful for you next season.

How to get invited to the shows?

Now this IS the most popular question out of them all. So here’s what I think. First of all, you need to be related to the fashion industry in one way or another (blogging, magazines, digital influencers, PR, press). If you are just starting any of the above and don’t have any connections in the industry yet, getting into the actual shows will be hard, I’m not gonna lie. You can’t buy the invites and you can only be invited by the brand or the PR agency who is representing it. So your only option is to hope that you know someone who attends the fashion week and ask them to either take you as a plus one or give you the invites to the shows that they won’t have a time or are not planning to attend. And if you are a beginning blogger or a magazine intern, I suggest you find the relevant press contact (usually an email address) on the websites of the brands whose shows you would like to attend and send them a letter introducing yourself and asking them to forward it to the most relevant person. It’s a long shot, but it works! Promise the brand coverage on your website or social media, cross your fingers and wait for their response. The worst that can happen is that you won’t hear back or get denied an invite in which case you will at least have a correct contact in your address book to try again in the future.

How to get ‘street papped‘ aka. street style photographed ?

This is a weird yet quite a buzzing question through these past few years that mostly comes from the new bloggers and ‘Instagrammers’. Street style photography is now almost as important part of the fashion week as the new season collections themselves. Judging from the popularity of the fashion week street style coverage online and in print people crave to see what the fashion crowd is wearing to the shows. Perhaps it’s because this is when the ‘catwalks come to life’ and the latest trends are worn by the ‘real’ people rather than the models and that’s how a lot of people get their styling ideas and inspiration these days. So is there a ‘template’ that will help you get noticed by the photographers? I’m sorry to say, but not really. Unless you are a famous face in the fashion industry (which is almost a guarantee of being photographed) the only thing you can do is work on your unique style. Yes, latest ‘IT’ bags and shoes help, but it’s more about a cool person, wearing a cool and stylish outfit with a confidence. Because no amount of Gucci fur sleepers will be enough to attract photographers attention otherwise.

What’s the easiest way to attend LFW?

In case you aren’t interested in getting into the shows or magazine street style round-ups but you’d still like to experience London Fashion Week, the best way to do so is to just come to its main location at Brewer Street Car Park and observe the madness that is a fashion week crowd. And if you do so and see me rummaging through it, come say hi!

In case you have more specific questions please feel free to ask them in the comment box or email me directly. Will do my best to help you.

P.S.  A couple of words on this outfit would be that trench coats and pointy boots are going to be very strong this Autumn/Winter season. The cap is optional though 😀

Photography by Patrik Lundin

J.LINDEBERG coat
LEVI’S shorts
ATTRIBUTE LONDON shoes