I spent last week in New York for fashion week. The city that never sleeps... stinks. And it’s somewhere I’d say one in every five people is having some kind of very loud, very physical fit on the side of the road. Coming home certainly makes London feel bitesize.
But it also makes London feel safe; much safer than I might have thought beforehand. While here you obviously cannot wear a Rolex without someone trying to cut your hand off, or dream of scrolling on your phone by a traffic light without a man on a bike snatching it out of your hand, let’s be thankful for the lesser evils.
The subway remains, frankly, the wild west. The Elizabeth line looks like something out of a utopia in comparison
I was bewildered by the NYPD’s self-congratulatory statement on my arrival. They were overjoyed with the fact only 27 people had been murdered in the city in January — 27! Down from last January’s 36, was their angle. The subway remains, frankly, the wild west. As far as I could tell it is left entirely unsupervised, and I was made to feel quite the tourist as about the only person to tap my card through the barriers. Everyone else has the double-handed leap over a turnstile down to a tee. Those in heels wait for a friend to buzz an alarmed emergency exit door open, letting everyone onto the platform for free. The Elizabeth line looks like something out of a utopia in comparison.
As for the clothes, New York fashion’s greatest asset Tommy Hilfiger put it best: “The London designers are a lot more creative, a lot more daring and really step outside the box. American designers are a lot more commercial.” While budget has never been something British designers have been treated to, just look at what we do on a shoestring.
Our designers might not be able to send everyone home with a goodie bag, but they more than provide new ideas for how we style ourselves. It’s for this reason London’s fashion schools still produce the cream of the crop at big labels: see Maximilian Davis at Ferragamo, Ib Kamara at Off-White and, of course, Jonathan Anderson at Loewe.
I’m not saying the cities have no similarities whatsoever. Every third shop is flogging vapes in the Big Apple, too. But that is hardly London’s best feature.
