Roving Reporter . . . Fashion Fringe at Covent Garden

I was lucky enough to bag a ticket to the Fashion Fringe at Covent Garden's 'Ladies Night', which saw an amazing panel of guests discuss the fashion industry at length.
On the panel was Averyl Oates (buying director at Harvey Nichols), Lorraine Candy (editor of Elle), Dolly Jones (editor of Vogue.com UK), Claudia Croft (Sunday Times Style) and Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou (editor of 10/10+). Seriously, how can you get more famous fashionista's in one room! To top it off it was chaired by the wonderful Colin McDowell.
As the talk was particularly long and in depth, I will be posting this even in a series of posts, with each one tackling a new topic! Please free to send me your feedback and air your views, did the fashion elite it right? or were they way off the mark?

First Up . . .
Is it a good idea for designers to leave university and start up their label straight away?

Sophia felt that it was essentially the best time to start up. She was all for ‘throwing people in the deep end’ and that new designers are often fearless’ which is what makes them so great.

Lorraine Candy on the other hand, felt that designers should be aware that they need to ‘surround themselves with people who can advise and help you at an early stage’.

Averyl Oates was quick to praise LFW, calling it ‘amazing’ as ‘young designers threw caution to the wind’ and it was these small players that ‘lifted a heavy season’, dogged down overly commercial collections. All the panel agreed it was, ‘the best LFW ever’. An economic crisis often brings out creativity and innovation.

Dolly Jones pointed out that ‘quality must be paired with creativity’, and that she has found that more and more of our young designers are ‘acting like business people, aware that the buyer is looking’; this is a killer combination.