The athletes weren’t the only ones sporting gold at the closing ceremony last night, as the best of British fashion (and models) came to showcase their talents in a mid-ceremony catwalk show.
As we had anticipated in light of the Vogue September Issue’s Midas Touch editorial, the British Fashion Council collaborated with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games to create a mini Olympic fashion show. Life sized billboards bearing the Mario Testino images appeared before the models entered the arena dressed in one-of-a-kind metallic pieces. And the theme? Gold. And lots of it. Models including London-born Kate Moss and Jourdan Dunn, wore specially designed pieces ranging from metal cocktail dresses, lace evening dresses, a crystal trouser suit and a gold feather headdress. And, might we add, David Gandy was looking super suave in a Paul Smith gold suit and tie.
As you can see from the image above, the supers made quite an impression.
Naomi Campbell wore a gold metallics embroidered Alexander McQueen dress with intricate train detailing.
Kate Moss sported a sequinned full-length Alexander McQueen dress
Karen Elson looked elegant in a Burberry lace evening dress
Stella Tennant looked edgy in a Christopher Kane metal mesh and Swarovski crystal trouser suit
Lily Cole rocked an Erdem gold embroidered and lace cocktail dress
Jourdan Dunn looked sensational in a white and gold leather dress by Jonathan Saunders & elaborate feather headdress by Stephen Jones
Georgia May Jagger wore a metallic Victoria Beckham dress
Lily Donaldson sported a signature Vivienne Westwood cut gold lace gown
David Gandy look dapper in Paul Smith. And is surely the only man who could get away with a head to toe gold suit and tie
When it comes to our favorite bit of the closing ceremony, there really is no doubt- British fashion stole the show!
UPDATE:
In a recent interview, Christopher Kane discussed working with Tennant and his choice to design a suit as opposed to a dress for the ceremony, saying: “I felt that a suit was so appropriate for Stella. Everytime I see her out and about at an event, she’s always got a really great jumpsuit on or a really great baggy pant- so a suit just felt right. We wanted something glamorous, it’s a bit Ziggy Stardust, a big David Bowie and slightly retro.”
On working with gold, Kane admitted to facing some difficulty: “I’ve never worked with gold before, so it was challenging. I used chainmail in my autumn/winter 2012-13 collection, but in gunmetal silver, so I felt it would be great to create the suit in a really fluid drape using gold chainmail, which is really quite a crazy fabric to work with. It’s metal, but we had to look into getting a light base- so it’s all aluminum, which is so light and wearable. Because it was for the Closing Ceremony, I decided to contact Swarovski- who make such an incredible crystal mesh, which we then jigsawed and integrated together. It must have taken a week to complete. . . at least 80 hours. We had to unlink each metal ring and reattach it. It was a really timely process.”
Well time well spent it was, Mr. Kane! Your hard work was not lost on us.