London Alternative Fashion Week

London's Spitalfields Market played host to Alternative Arts' annual Alternative Fashion Week from April 20 until April 24, a platform for new, young designers to showcase their talent.

Designers emphasized the importance of fashion meaning something during the current recession and suggested consumers will focus on uniqueness and affordability which is what they offer.

Only 70 designers are chosen to partake in Alternative Fashion Week and Alternative Arts have to turn away hundreds of entrees each year. Many of the designers are graduates, fresh from college and looking for a stepping stone into the mainstream fashion industry.

Alternative Fashion Week takes an 'alternative' approach to fashion and shows consumers how to have designer fashion in the current financial crisis. It supports recycling and ethical sourcing. "We're interested in fashion that doesn't cost the earth," Maggie Pinhorn, director at Alternative Arts, said.

Colleges from around Britain came to showcase their graduate designers' collections. City & Islington College's range was inspired by Russian Tsars, encompassing military authority in unmilitary colors and textures.

Haute Couture of High Fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry.

The first Haute Couture was established by Charles Worth in Paris in 1858.

The English designer moved to Paris and opened a boutique with a radical new approach to fashion where he told people what to wear. Up until then, it was customary for patrons to dictate the design of their robes.

In 1993 Spitalfields was a deserted, rundown area with a huge, empty market building. Now it is an important cultural quarter in London with markets, galleries and restaurants. Alternative Fashion Week has played a part in regenerating the area, raising its profile to a global audience.

At fashion shows designers strive to make an impression on the crowd. And at Alternative Fashion Week, designer Robert Miller's "Pretty Pervy" line received a lot of attention for the burlesque way the models performed, slapping their buttocks and blowing kisses to the public.

Young designer Manjit Sangha's debut of his "Doghouse" brand opts for an 'anti-label' take on t-shirts, with a slogan of "This Means War". He describes his line as "unprecious; unruly; the backstabbers of couture."

The Alternative Fashion Week's daily catwalk shows were accompanied by live contemporary jazz from "Tex Tile and the Catwalk Combo."

The famous fashion magazine Vogue first started as a weekly society magazine. It was first published in 1892. In 1909, a publisher named Conde Nast bought the paper and turned it into one of America's, and the world's, pre-eminent fashion magazines.

Since AFW takes place minutes from the city's financial sector, the catwalk shows attract a range of spectators, from fashionistas, the media, bored financial types and tourists, as well as designers' families and friends.

The models in the shows are new. "There has been a bigger response in terms of all the young people wanting work experience and all the young people wanting to model," Maggie Pinhorn, director at Alternative Arts, said.

Stylistically, designer Manjit Sangha's "Doghouse" line was very bold and creative, with models sporting white and black masks and donning football-style shoulder pads and leggings.

Designer Robert Miller's "Pretty Pervy" line received a lot of attention at Alternative Fashion Week as it included outfits made from rubber featuring exaggerated detailing and silhouette. What Miller said about his line: "The strong curvaceous outlines are created with real body shapes utilizing the realistic body sizes of the fuller figure."