There’s no place for ultra-formal evening wear in London fashion week—except, that is, for Richard Quinn. The glittering processions of ballgowns he presents every season are a declaration of his commitment to doing one thing: “We always look at our business as making beautiful gowns for women at these amazing events of their life, whether it’s a wedding or someone else’s special event that they’re attending,” he said backstage.
It’s not that other young London designers don’t design for evening. Everyone from Harris Reed to Roksanda, Erdem, and Simone Rocha, to the newcomer Patrick McDowell each have their own avant-garde interpretations of special-occasion and party wear. The difference with Quinn is that he’s hyper-focused on relating his work to women with classic tastes. This season, he worked 44 highly constructed and embellished looks, starting in black and white and transitioning through pops of red, fuchsia, and pastel. Flowers—Quinn’s signature obsession—manifested in the shape of diamanté brooches, and rose and forget-me-not garlands circling crinolined skirts and corseted bodices.
Quinn’s styles and silhouettes are essentially a rotating carousel of 1950s through 1980s haute couture and old Hollywood fantasies, but his business couldn’t be a more down-to-earth proposition, backed up with his own atelier and client service in South London. To him, there’s no such thing as a show piece. “We sell everything we show on the runway, and we adapt them, so there’s a real bespoke kind of couture side to our business. Basically, it’s beautiful gowns for beautiful occasions, things that can be passed down. Heirlooms.”
If owning this category means stepping away from making seasonal fashion statements as the media expects them, then Quinn seems to have made his peace with that. These days—fetish cats and gimp masks long gone—his collectsion and customer service focus align much more with a centuries-old British tradition. Where London’s Savile Row makes bespoke dinner suits for men with conservative tastes, Richard Quinn and his house offer women clients the equivalent in the bespoke dress-making category. Perhaps other businesses like this do exist discreetly and behind the scenes, but only Quinn makes a splash of it during London Fashion Week. Watching his fall show was a matter of imagining this class of people attending the same sorts of gala dinners, corporate events, or palatial ceremonial occasions. There are worlds where traditional dress codes are still de rigueur, and Quinn holds his runway place for that.
