2012 – A Fantastic Year for British Fashion

As 2012 and my first six months of my job at the Embassy came to a close, my colleagues and I reflected back on how great the year was for the UK. One of the reasons that we were able to celebrate this was because of the cutting edge UK fashion industry.

Recently our very own British Ambassador, Peter Westmacott was voted one of the best dressed in DC by Bloomberg  in their Best Dressed of 2012. The post reads that Peter “dresses the part of the English gentleman with double breasted suits and beige trench coats. The bright red socks worn for his guest appearance on ‘The Colbert Report’ earned him serious style cred.” Here at the Embassy, we couldn’t agree more. However, Ambassador Westmacott wasn’t the only Brit with serious style last year…

2012 saw the first ever fashion magazine photo shoot at Number 10 by Marie Claire, featuring UK actresses Bonnie Wright and Karen Gillan.

We also saw a London Fashion Week show inside The Foreign Office featuring Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label, as well as numerous British brands opening up stores in the US, including Mulberry and LK Bennett. Americans were enthralled by Daniel Craig’s suits in Skyfall – each one tailored perfectly for the British spy.

The same goes for the Crawley family on Downton Abbey, arguably the most popular British television transplant of all time. The show brilliantly depicts a time where the entire family dressed to the nines each night for supper, complete with floor-length beaded gowns for women and white tie for men.

What both impressed and distressed me about Downton’s fashion was how fantastic the male servants looked, dressed in suits to serve the Crawley’s, while the women seem to be hidden in less than striking uniforms.

The GREAT campaign also officially launched in New York with the help of one of our GREAT ambassador’s Victoria Beckham, who for the last few seasons has proudly shown her popular clothing line during New York Fashion Week.

Numerous fashion industry insiders took part in the launch, including the British Born Editor of American Vogue and global queen of fashion – Anna Wintour.

And then there were this year’s Olympic Games, which gave an opportunity for fashion designers to showcase an often-overlooked realm of ready-to-wear clothing: sportswear. In addition to designing the official uniforms for Team GB, British designer Stella McCartney designed ‘My 2012,’ a collection for Adidas of fashionable sportswear focused on London 2012.

This saw an influx of sportswear by designers all over the world, including Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani. As someone who firmly disagrees with wearing sportswear except for when actually playing sports, Olympic-themed clothing is something I could get behind.

I expect GREAT things from British fashion and designers this year – with New York fashion week only a month away, there is a lot of opportunity for GREAT British brands to excel in 2013.