{"id":440715,"date":"2025-09-21T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T10:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/440715\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T10:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T10:33:09","slug":"lancashire-grandmas-and-regal-glamour-london-fashion-week-one-to-watch-patrick-mcdowell-shares-the-inspirations-behind-his-breathtaking-new-collection-and-the-advice-he-received-from-the-princess-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/440715\/","title":{"rendered":"Lancashire grandmas and regal glamour: London Fashion Week one-to-watch Patrick McDowell shares the inspirations behind his breathtaking new collection – and the advice he received from the Princess of Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flash forward to today and the upper echelons of the fashion world\u2019s glitteratti have once again congregated – this time at Battersea Power Station – alongside high society swans Lady Eliza and Lady Amelia Spencer to bear witness to the first fashion show ever hosted inside of the historic address. Indeed, the beau monde has been quick to dazzle in McDowell ever since his Princess Kate moment earlier this spring. In Tatler\u2019s August issue, Fiona Howden, grande dame of Cornbury<\/a> House, donned a black tulle and champagne silk ballgown to pose in front of the 16th century Chipping Norton stately, and at the Serpentine Summer Party – the ultimate invite for anyone who is anyone during the the British Season – the designer dressed Munroe Bergdorf in a custom caped ensemble to much fanfare from the glittering guestlist of the Kensington<\/a> Gardens soir\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

Lady Eliza Spencer and Lady Amelia Spencer on the front row<\/p>\n

Dave Benett\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u2018The Lancashire Rose\u2019 is what McDowell chose to title today\u2019s 25-look strong collection filled with puffball skirts, faded floral prints and deconstructed trenchcoats. A touching tribute to his grandmother, a fabric weaver who first taught the designer how to sew on her original 1950s Singer sewing machine. \u2018In Lancashire [back then], women made fabric and men worked in mines. They were the two industries,\u2019 says McDowell, \u2018I think all gay designers – well, all designers maybe, but specifically the gay ones – seem to have special relationships with their grandmas,\u2019 he laughs.<\/p>\n

As such, granny dearest delicacies become abundant throughout the line. Thimbles and needles swing from corseted bustiers and balconettes in homage to the late McDowell matriarch, and nipped-waist bar jackets and lace capes nod to the glamour of mid-century couturiers. Collaborating with Aspinal of London, a number of sewing box-esque minaudi\u00e9res became the new must-haves, as touted by the Spencer twins<\/a> on the front row.<\/p>\n

And then there was the link to the Lancaster Rose, the indelible emblem of heritage and prestige which dates back to the 14th century when the royal House of Lancaster adopted it as its heraldic badge. \u2018It\u2019s a nice British story\u2019, shares McDowell. \u2018I know it\u2019s a bit clich\u00e9 but I do love flowers. And red is a powerful colour. I found out from a friend that Christian Dior used to put one red look in the middle of his collections to wake the audience up at those very slow salon shows, so we have one red dress in the collection [to nod to that],\u2019 he adds.<\/p>\n

The support from winning the Queen Elizabeth II Award has been significant. It was the Princess of Wales who suggested working with composer Erland Cooper on the show\u2019s musical score. \u2018She very kindly recommended that we listened to Erland Cooper’s work. At the [May] show, instead of having a performance, I wanted to move our atelier to [the venue] to show people all of the different amazing craftspeople we work with to make our clothes. And as part of our studio, as you heard upstairs, is piano music – very calm music. We played that at the award presentation and she loved the music and recommended we listened to [Cooper\u2019s] work,\u2019 McDowell shares. Along with music director Dave Chase – known for his work with Burberry – actual recordings of McDowell\u2019s grandmother were spliced into the classical soundtrack, with a poetic recording from the designer himself included too.<\/p>\n

But dig deeper and those royal ties go even further. McDowell has been working with students from the King\u2019s Foundation on embroidery over at Highgrove and Dumfries House, and three millinery pieces came from its Millinery Fellowship alum Niall Daniel White, adding wide-brimmed saucers and feather-plumed halos to his breathtaking ensembles. \u2018I thought these hats were incredible and we’ve never done proper millinery before, so it was really nice to work with [him],\u2019 says McDowell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flash forward to today and the upper echelons of the fashion world\u2019s glitteratti have once again congregated –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,2584,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-440715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-fashion","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115241838519646319","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}