Fashion Week in London

Once you’ve arrived in London and settled in, grab a train for some sustainable travel to stretch your legs at the Somerset House. It’s an architectural beauty and has frequently been the setting for London Fashion Week. As you’re strolling, look over the courtyard and see where the tents have been set up. You’re looking at the very spot where hundreds of models have walked runways that have dictated the fashions you wear today. Grab a bite or a drink, Somerset has a few options available, and enjoy a relaxing afternoon there.

The Fashion and Textile Museum is unique in that it’s dedicated to exhibiting developments in contemporary fashion, and not just established contemporary fashion. You’ll also get to see a wide variety of international textiles on display, which offer a fascinating glimpse of the patterns that inspired some that we see on our own clothes today. In addition to its permanent displays, if you call or email ahead, you can set yourself up at a workshop so you can delve a little deeper into fashion technique, drawing or history. 

Today you’ll have to take a short, hour and a half train ride outside of London proper to the neighboring city of Bath. The museum is incredibly interactive and family friendly. You’ll not only get to see modern fashions modeled after historic rooms, but you’ll also see them in historic rooms where they once might have walked. Children are welcome to dress up in replica costumes from the Georgian and Victorian ages, and for an especially unique fashion experience, you can’t miss the Little and Large collection. This unique collection shows clothing made for adults and then recreated for dolls. 

The Victoria and Albert Museum is one of the world’s most renowned museums for fashion and design. With an exhibit or display for everything from weddings, to shoes, to fashion in motion to jewelry, whatever sort of apparel you’re looking to find, you’re guaranteed to find here. You’ll see everything from shoes worn in Egypt in 1550 B.C. to a dress designed by Alexander McQueen in 2010. Almost no time period goes untouched, so you can witness the evolution of fashion up close.

Like a living timeline, the Museum of London has a set of permanent galleries for you to tour. You’ll start in the 1670s in the Expanding Cities section, and admire the intriguing fashions of the day. Note the strange hats, large skirts and stiff uniforms of the day. From there, you’ll head to the People’s City, where starting in the 1850s, things began to loosen up a bit as London became one of the most populated cities in the entire world. Finally, witness what influence the end of the industrial boom and the start of the technological age had on London fashion in the 1950s to the present day. You can easily spend a day going back and forth and back again to see the way things have changed, and some of the ways they’ve stayed the same.

While many of your destinations so far have been a trip down memory lane of European Fashion, this destination offers you a trip into the future. The wild galleries and exhibitions will keep you guessing and keep you intrigued about what’s coming next. You’ll see pops of color, avant-garde fashion, the hautest of couture, and all in the most interesting of fabrics and materials. 

Before you head to the airport, you’ll be going to Selfridges, one of the most well-known department stores in the United Kingdom. It’s so legendary that a TV show highlighting the store’s beginnings aired in 2013, and it’s been said that store founder Harry Selfridge coined the phrase, “The customer is always right.” Today, it remains a destination for those looking for luxury, and it delivers both in the clothing and accessories it displays but also the top-notch customer service it offers.