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满大街都是“清仓销售”的标牌，百分之七十五的商店都写着大减价，银行纷纷破产，首相也忧心忡忡地探讨着“责任心”——这样一副场景怎能不让设计师们打开他们的记忆宝库、激发创作灵感？英国经济萧条，却引出了设计师们的独特创作思路。
Forests of "For Sale" signs on the streets, 75 percent markdowns in shop windows, banks going bust and a gloomy prime minister talking about "responsibility" - what a perfect image from the memory bank to inspire British designers.
We are talking not only about today"s background of "broke Britain" but also about the last time that recession slammed the brakes on the economy - and how young designers then found creativity in economic chaos.
The overriding theme of the early shows of London Fashion Week has been a 1980s revival - back to that rave daze, when shoulders were as icicle sharp as the frosty fiscal climate and dressing up was the only way to beat the freeze.
For newly minted design school graduates, the past is not fashion"s yesterday but a distant land of plenty. And where better to see those images on the runway than at the Topshop Unique show, where everything that was the 1980s - from sparkly Spandex sweatpants to hooded track tops - was given the futuristic, intergalactic Star Wars treatment. Since for most of the clients, Kate Moss, who has her own line at Topshop, could almost be their mother, this show of bright colors, sharp edges and cocoon shapes had a new energy and inventiveness.
This rave culture revisited, done with humor and dash, should also play well in New York, when Sir Philip Green, Topshop"s owner, finally opens in April the much anticipated outpost of London cool.
Even Material Girl Madonna was back in all her corseted glory at Richard Nicoll"s show on Sunday, where the designer collaborated with the artist Linder Sterling, whose punk collages and gender play were the show"s inspiration.
