Capital gains: Young British fashion designers are attracting international brands to London's menswear showcase

 

Today is the start of London Collections: Men. It's the fifth time that London has presented a stand-alone fashion week for men, cramming almost 70 shows and presentations into three days. It isn't just about showing what British designers have to offer, though. This time around, Italian label Moschino (helmed by the American designer Jeremy Scott) has elected to show its menswear in London, and Scott joins fellow American Tom Ford and a welter of homegrown names including Burberry Prorsum and Alexander McQueen. The visibility of London's menswear showcase is fast rising. What is it that makes London menswear so appealing? Its comparative youth, for a start: Milan and Paris have been showing menswear separately from their women's collections for more than 15 years. The status as a fresh newcomer of London Collections: Men is mirrored in its designers, whose ages hover somewhere around 30. JW Anderson, newly appointed head of Loewe, reaches that milestone this year; new talent Craig Green, who shows his hotly anticipated show tomorrow, is 27; while the inaugural winner of the BFC/GQ Designer Fashion Fund, Christopher Shannon, is only 33.