Collections / Spring 2000 : Hey, Girlie! : Hard on the heels of New York’s event, London Fashion Week presents a view of an ultra-feminine millennium: ruffles, floaty fabrics and designer undies.

Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood may have gone elsewhere, but London Fashion Week is not letting that dampen its enthusiastic vision for the first spring and summer of a new millennium.

Bright pastels, peach-soft leather and whisper-chiffon sequins, ruching and ruffles and cheerful florals combine for a deeply feminine look.

Clements Ribeiro produced dresses, blouson tops and skirts in transparent chiffon scattered with flowers or giant sequins in pink, plum, brown and yellow, teamed with matching cardigans and underwear.

Jasper Conran shunned color for mainly monochrome creations in lace and silk.

Betty Jackson showed minuscule tops and camisoles in crochet and gathered chiffon teamed with skirts with ruffled hems, and simple slipdresses with ruffles torn to resemble old lace, all in a palette of Delft blue, lilac, lemon and beige. Floral beads adorned pink-and-white checked jackets and skirts.

The “bad boy” of British fashion, Red or Dead’s Wayne Hemingway, sent “real people”--including Body Shop founder Anita Roddick--down the catwalk in African prints and outfits in batik, cheesecloth and crushed linen, muslin and leather.

He said he had decided not to use models to give “a sense of an egalitarian future.”

But rising designer Robert Cary-Williams used both Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to show off his wisps of dresses, shredded gun-shot T-shirts and leather jackets decorated with mirror shards. His ranch theme was echoed by the design team at Preen, which showed dramatically draped leather tops with deep cowl necks and torn hems.

Preen and Clements Ribeiro were among the designers who chose to show in the old warehouses that line Brick Lane in east London, the historical heart of Britain’s garment industry.

Sheila Maloney’s models strutted through an old boiler room in bikini tops decorated with slivers of bright chiffon and little black dresses enlivened at the hem with pastel chiffon pleats. Sonja Nuttall let her pleated and ruched outfits in stone, black and lemon speak for themselves from a rack in the back of a parked truck.

Other designers showing spring lines included Pam Hogg, Markus Lupfer, the New Zealand Four and Amanda Wakely.

McQueen and Westwood, usually among the biggest draws of London Fashion Week, decided not to do shows so soon after their extravaganzas in New York last week. But McQueen has said he will be back in London next time.

More than 40 designers staged shows over four days of London Fashion Week, and more than 200 designers exhibited bags, jewelry and shoes.

Hey, Girlie!

Hard on the heels of New York’s event, London Fashion Week presents a view of an ultra-feminine millennium: ruffles, floaty fabrics and designer undies.