Fashion Trends

Fashion Capitals of the World

The world of fashion is a competitive one, designers of both adult and children’s clothes compete at events hosted by cities, dubbed ‘fashion capitals’. These cities are recognised for their contribution to fashion, or in being the base for some well known fashion designers. Fashion schools in these cities will often only take on the best and brightest aspiring fashion designers. The following article will take a short journey to the ‘Big 4’, the top fashion cities the world has to offer, for now at least.

Paris

Paris is synonymous with elegance and style, Paris is what London tried to be all throughout the Victorian era. These days Paris is still a recognised fashion capital. Many excellent fashion houses are French, like Louis Vuitton or Catimini clothing, which specialises in children’s wear. Fashion week in Paris takes place twice a year catering for the Autumn/Winter lines and Spring/Summer lines. These events revolve around a main catwalk where the most high profile design houses exhibit. During the weeks though there are other official unveilings and satellite events where designs like the less high profile Catimini clothing can take stage.

Paris Fashion

London

London is currently ranked the no.1 fashion capital in the world, a title it gained in 2011. It is unusual for a city to remain at the no.1 spot for more than one year, however prior to 2011 New York had held the title for 5 years. The rankings are calculated by the Global Language Monitor and sometimes the big 4 fashion capitals may not feature in the official top 4 fashion cities for that year at all. The Global Language Monitor works out the rankings by tracking what people are searching for in terms of fashion on the internet, and in up to 75,000 other media sources including those in print. As a result of the research London came out on top, jumping from its 2010 position of 3rd. It is likely that the reason for the top-spot-takeover was the Royal wedding, during which Kate Middleton received significant exposure, especially in regards to her image and fashion.

london fashion

New York

As previously mentioned, New York had held the top spot as the no.1 fashion capital of the world for 5 years until 2011. New York plays host to a fashion week in February and September every year which features designers from around the world. It was in New York that the first ever fashion week occurred in 1943, at the time it was known as Press Week. It was in fact a French fashion week, but due to the occupation of France by Nazi forces the Americans offered to host the event. When the show finally made it home to France, and as the other major fashion capitals began to run their own competitive but complementary shows, the name ‘Press Week’ had to be altered to define the event.

2009 was a big year for New York fashion week. The global financial crisis had struck just a year earlier and much of the world was gripped by recession. The fashion industry was not immune from the effects and as a result New York fashion week saw many of the host of designers creating recession friendly pieces. The pieces that were being designed were created with the purpose in mind that they could be used for more than one season, so the versatile designs could be utilised by the consumer all year round, helping to make the pennies go that little bit further.

new york fashion

Milan

Fashion weeks allow the industry to pick up on the overall trends for the coming season. Classy Italian fashion houses will often display at the Milan Fashion Week which again is held twice a year, in February/March and September/October. 2011 saw the inclusion in the top 4 official fashion cities for that year of the actual big 4 fashion capitals, with Milan reaching a position of 4th, behind London, New York, and Paris. Over the years though Milan has often worn the crown as the top fashion capital and it is certain to regain the title at some point again in the future, perhaps when the hype of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and the London Summer Olympics dies down.

milan fashion

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For full access to wonderful children’s Catimini clothing head over to Scarlet Sky’s fabulous online store.

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