How to do London Fashion Week – My Experience | LFW SS ’19

Hi guys! SO if you followed my stories last week, you saw that I attended my first London Fashion Week, AND visited London for the first time ever as well! I went with my girl KP, a Toronto based blogger, of We Are Living Art + founder of La Reyna. Kristina and I actually met at Fashion Week in New York last year – our seats were assigned right next to each other at a Dennis Basso’s Spring ’19 show and we hit it off!

Anyways, I wanted to walk y’all through our fashion week schedule + experience while in London! We had an awesome time with a great mix of shows, presentations, showroom visits, and events! I could not have asked for a better experience at my first LFW attendance…well, maybe if we had attended Burberry 😉or a better travel buddy!

London Fashion Week – Day 1:

On day 1 – we both touched down in London town **cue American boy- Kanye + Estelle** and were extremely tired and jet lagged -_-. Due to my flight originally being delayed 7 hours, I decided to make moves and switched flights allowing me to arrive only a few hours later than planned. KP and I checked into our AirBnB, and quite literally lied there catching up on life and ‘rest’ (with out eyes open).

We adventured out in the evening for some dinner at the IVY Chelsea Garden off of Kings Road.

The Ivy was super cute – definitely recommend! We had some good wine & food and rested up for our first full day!

*tip – give yourself at least a day in advance to re-adjust to the time change and travel. We technically left the states on the 15th and arrived the 16th!

We adventured out in the evening for some dinner at the IVY Chelsea Garden off of Kings Road. The Ivy was super cute – definitely recommend! We had some good wine & food and rested up for our first full day! *tip- give yourself at least a day in advance to re-adjust to the time change and travel. We technically left the states on the 15th and arrived the 16th! 

London Fashion Week – Day 2:

Fashion week officially began for us on Day 2 of our travels- we woke up, tired AF, which seemed to be the ongoing theme of this trip with our everlasting jet lag lol, but we pushed through it!

Once we got ready for the day we checked out of our Chelsea AirBnB and into the gorgeous May Fair Hotel! We had a partnership set up with The May Fair London, and we could not have been more pleased with our stay & the beautiful property!

The staff was so helpful & kind and they even went out of their way to welcome us by leave a few little surprise goodies in our room upon check-in. The May Fair Hotel really made us feel at home during our visit!

After getting settled into our new home away from home, we headed straight to our first Runway Show of the day. We had two shows back to back – the first was The Collective Catwalk Show, which presented 6 up-and-coming designer’s collections. It was pretty inspiring & motivating seeing some of these ‘new-er’ collections and their hard work come to life, as a designer hopeful myself (stay tuned). The second show we saw was the Leonie Mergen runway show – she had some very gorgeous, chic pieces!

We wrapped up our daytime events & shows and went around town shooting some fun looks before our evening show!

We attended the AADNEVIK runway show at The Royal Horseguards – the catwalk took place in a library room of sorts, which was a pretty cool! The AADNEVIK show was also sponsored by Moroccan Oil (a favorite), who provided some take home goodies for us as well 😊. I was not originally too familiar with the brand, but after seeing the first few pieces I knew this collection was going to be killer. Their pieces were absolutely gorgeous, and I wanted to wear every single thing! *Side note, after doing my research, I began to notice that a lot of VS models rock AADNEVIK’s gorgeous dresses, so I meannn…definitely legit.

After this show, we decided to have a late night dinner at Sexy Fish. Such a cool atmosphere, great food, and music – a must while in London for a fun vibe!

London Fashion Week – Day 3:

We started our day downstairs at the May Fair Kitchen for some tasty breakfast (definitely a must if you ever find yourself in the area!). Then, we headed off to our first presentation of the day at The Discovery Lab. This presentation featured Wesley Harriott – his pieces were absolutely incredible! This presentation was so simplistic, yet so attention-grabbing!

After the presentation we shot some more looks, per usual, and did a quick outfit change for our brunch with our Public Desire fam! We met for brunch at Élan, which if you have yet to hear or see this café on Instagram, it is a beautiful, flower filled, instagram-worthy pink café with all of the tasty foodz, pastries, and beverages. Three Words, Lucky Charms Latte…OMG! ANYWAYS, brunch was great, we had a little one on one time with the Public Desire team, met some London influencers, and did a fun little takeover/Q&A on PD’s Instagram stories!

We finished up brunch, then proceeded to get a little lost trying to find our cab home, and CASUALLY walked by Brooklyn Beckham – soooo it was worth it :p, ha!

In the evening we attended the Edeline Lee & Glass Magazine party at Onima! This was a great way to meet other people in the industry out in the UK + let loose for a little after an extremely busy start of the week!

London Fashion Week – Day 4:

On day 4, we started our day shooting a few things in The May Fair Hotel and around the city, followed by lunch at the May Fair Kitchen. I can now confirm that their lunch, too is delicious – highly recommend their white sangrias as well, like HOW CUTE ARE THESE?!

Next stop, the RIXO presentation, which was one of my FAVORITES from LFW. This presentation was out of this world! It was held at Disco 54, a play off of NYs ‘Studio 54’ ,which was so fab! This venue was massive – on regular evenings Disco 54 turns into a Disco Cabaret Show, which I 1000% need to catch next time I am in London. But, upon arrival for the RIXO presentation we were greeted with disco ball dranks + an awesome view from above where guests could look down and see the presentation as well as traveling down the ball room stair cases to view the pieces up close and personal. This presentation had models of all ages, dressed in the new season S/S ’19 pieces. And unlike other presentations, the models were instructed to dance rather than stay mannequin-like and ever so still. The collection, the venue/décor, and all of the intricate details were so on point! I am officially a big fan of RIXO!

To finish off our day, we headed over to the BFC (British Fashion Council) Designer Showrooms. The showrooms here during LFW consisted of multiple collections in one space to discover. Whether up-and-coming or pretty established brands, they were all stunning, hand-selected, and so much fun!

As I briefly mentioned earlier in this post, if you did not already know, I have actually been in the works of my own collection this past year – so seeing these designers and their work was super inspiring! I also loved coming across these beautiful lines that I may not have discovered on my own time.

London Fashion Week – Day 5:

This was our last full day *tear* 😢 so we wanted to make the most of it and do a little exploring/touristy thangs, since fashion week had officially come to an end. We headed to Notting Hill, which is where all of the pretty, colorful homes (that you have probably seen online) – IG worthy photo-ops for dayzzz #obsessed. 

We had scheduled a shoot with a London based photographer, Sarah Ellen and shot some fun photos around the area!

After our shoot, we headed to the iconic restaurant, SKETCH. KP and I had high tea in the Gallery. This room is an all pink insta-worthy goals room! High tea is a tradition in the UK and SKETCH is a must if you have yet to do this. We picked out our tea selects, had finger foods and sweets for DAYZZZZ. I have a big sweet tooth but no joke, we had some regular finger foods (which were quite tasty) followed by…like…a 6 course dessert LOL. Talk about a food coma amiright?

Also- if you get the opportunity to visit SKETCH, don’t forget to visit the LOOO 😉.

To finish up our last evening in London, we did some shopping around the Carnaby area, Mayfair, and Regent Street (our favorite). We also stopped in a few wine bars, one of which was Mr. Fogg’s – it was superrr cool.

LFW tip**** we did not make it to every show or event that we RSVPd & intended to, but sometimes keeping your sanity is important too lol. If you cannot make it to every event or show it is O.K. I would suggest, if you are not familiar with all of the designers on your schedule, to do your research and keep in mind which are most important to you or which are must see events/shows if your schedule gets to be overbooked or overwhelming.

Overall, we had such a great experience and made it to the perfect mix of events + shows during our time in London. We also got to explore London a little on the last day, which was an extra plus 😊. While I do wish we stayed longer to explore even more, I think we fit in a pretty good amount!

Until next time, London- CHEERIO <3.

xo lauren