I tend to do a bit of a hiding act when London Fashion Week (or any other fashion week, for that matter) comes around. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the buzz, the excitement, the sheer energy that goes into producing these shows; I’m just a grumpy hermit crab who hates excess noise and any kind of unnecessary stress, and shows provide both of those things by the bucketload!

However. Once every while I get a little offer that I can’t refuse, and this season it was from TIGI, to go backstage at Mark Fast. Mark Fast, just to give you a quick little truncated biog, is an extremely cool, brilliantly talented knitwear designer. He always pushes the boat out for his shows and comes up with something new, interesting and humorous. So I couldn’t really turn this invitation down – I had access all areas and one-on-ones with both Mark Fast and Nick Irwin, the global director for TIGI Creatives. You’ll see from the video below that Nick’s Salt ‘n Pepa-inspired wigs were actually a very integral part of the overall look – the hair is always important, but this took hair to a whole new level!

On the runway at Mark Fast. Copyright AMR

All of the girls wore the same graphically cut afro wig which gave the whole show this amazing uniformity – very, very clever. Nick used TIGI dry shampoo (in massive amounts, apparently!) to take the synthetic shine off the very cheap wigs and then used lots of hairspray to give the wig hold and create even more texture. It was amazing how the wigs changed the way that the girls looked – I didn’t even recognise Daisy Lowe until someone pointed her out to me!

Nick Irwin at Mark Fast SS13. Copyright TIGI

When I had a few minutes to chat to Mark Fast, I asked him about his inspiration behind this season’s show (original, I know, but I was genuinely curious!) and he said that he always starts the design process with music. He listens to music and tries to ‘capture its energy’ – this time it was Lil Kim, Jay Z – and of course, Sal ‘n Pepa! – ‘honest, brave hip-hop lyrics.’ Models were cast for their attitude and charisma – with such a bold look to carry off, they needed to also have very striking features.

Have a look at the video that I’ve put together – sorry about the music issues, I just can’t afford to get sued at this particular moment, so you’ll have to make do with the small snippets of Salt ‘n Pepa’s Push It that I can legally get away with. I can tell you, though, that there wasn’t a still body in the house as that music kicked in through the speakers, it sounded insane!

Backstage at Mark Fast SS13. Copyright Triumph International

Right, here we go – keep a look out for the beautiful Christian Louboutin’s and the body makeup lingerie from Triumph. (Click here to see last week’s post about my tight-as-you-like Triumph slip!) In the intro, you might also be able to spot Daisy Lowe with a wig stocking on her head, smoking a fag wearing some kind of crazy all-in-one! And in the show sections, Pixie Lott and Kelly Brook…

If you can’t see this video pane then you can click HERE to go through to the video.