London, Sept 20: Some 50 designers, from Katherine Hamnett and Paul Smith to a posse of up-and-coming talent, are sending out their new pret-a-porter collections as London Fashion Week kicks off today.
Over five days, top names like Pringle, Nicole Fahri, Jasper Conran and Betty Jackson will be showing alongside smaller houses including ghost, John Rocha, Gibo, Sophia Kokosalaki, Preen and Eley Kashimoto. Husband-and-wife team Suzanne Clements and Inacio Ribeiro, who did much to revive the Paris Fashion House Cacharel, will present their own collection under the name Clements Ribeiro.

London has a reputation for turning out highly creative designers, and fashion week -- which is set to pull in 4,000 buyers and journalists -- is meant to provide a platform for fresh talent.
"London is a creative hotbed," said Claudia Crow of the British Fashion Council. "We provide some of the best designers in the world."

Taking their chances in the coming days will be 38 first-timers to London fashion week, including Peter Jensen, 25-year-old Jonathan Saunders, Bora Aksu and Miki Fukai.

No-shows include Burberry, which is taking its trendy tartan-trademark Trenchcoat variations to Milan, and French expat Roland Mouret, who lives in London but opted to show his spring-summer collection in New York.

It's relatively easy to hold a runway show in London, even for young graduates from the capital's many design schools such as central saint martins, the royal college of art and the London Fashion College. Bureau Report