Dedicated followers of fashion

Oct 18 2007 by Paul Corcoran, Liverpool Daily Post

‘PENNY for the Guy?” asked a group of young children when I was shopping with my friends, Lorraine and Neil, over the weekend.

Entrepreneurial, to say the least.

Not only were these youngsters a month early with their monetary requests, but the Guy in question was much better dressed than I was; in fact, it resembled a mannequin fresh from Drome Men’s shop window. As a result, I couldn’t help but feel slightly peeved that these young entrepreneurs had created such a fashionable creation and had then frowned upon my 50p donation.

With fashion in mind, later in the week I joined a whole host of fashionistas attending a fashion show and fair held at the uber-fabulous Metquarter as part of Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission’s week-long pro- gramme of events. The show, supported by the lovely people at Make Your Mark in Liverpool, was designed to showcase the latest garments created by Liverpool’s very own designers – and what a show it was.

The show was opened by Professor Phil Redmond, Chairman of the Commission, who offered a heartfelt thank you to all those involved before introducing Liverpool’s very own Stella McCartney, aka Kirsty Doyle, to open the show. For those who may have been vacationing from planet fashion, Kirsty is the local fashion designer who won national acclaim when she took the top spot in the first season of Sky One’s Project Catwalk show. She has since gone from strength to strength with her designs, winning a national contract with Littlewoods for starters.

I found it refreshing to see someone who has been there and achieved success still taking the time to come back to the city where it all began to share her experiences with the next generation of entrepreneurs looking to enter the fashion industry.

Although it didn’t quite measure up to London Fashion Week, the event organisers pulled out the all the stops on the night with a full dance show being accompanied by complementary wine and canapés made by Glen and Dougie, from Pushka, on Rodney Street. I tried on a number of occasions to befriend the waitresses to help fill the void where my dinner should have been, and was relatively successful in my attempts.

But, more than anything else, the reason why many of us had temporarily delayed our dinner plans was to see the fashion show and applaud the young designers who had created such dynamic winter ranges.

I was especially impressed with the garments created by local designer Helen Lovett, whose designs are currently on show in the window of the Metquarter’s Fossil store, and form part of the centre’s Turner Prize student exhibition. Thanks to the show, I have since been to the Landbaby store, in Petticoat Lane, off Bold Street, to purchase a couple of her uber-cool sanded leather cravats, which would have the Anna Wintour inside all of us reaching for the credit cards. Remember where you heard the name first.

And so, as a fresh tide of retailers flock to the city to take up residence, vend their wares and generally keep the Liverpool glitterati appropriately suited and booted, hopefully we, in the not so distant future, may see more of Liverpool’s own talented designers opening new stores and taking the fashion industry by storm. That said, if the applause offered up for the young designers’ winter collections last week was anything to go by, you may be making extra room in your wardrobes sooner than you think. Brace yourselves.