The Power List

The British Fashion Council has just published ‘The Power List’, the top 25 movers and shakers, influence-makers working in the fashion industry. The list has been created to coincide with the BFC’s year-long celebrations of 25 years of British fashion. The list is a mixture of recognisable Great British Fashion stalwarts like David Bailey, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Sir Paul Smith and Harold Tillman – when half the listed has been knighted or otherwise MBE’d, OBE’d or CBE’d by Her Majesty it is a wonder that Tillman has not been recognised for his various roles in turning Jaeger from the Home Counties favourite into a high-end fashion emporium, supporting emerging design talent whether through his seat on the board of the Fashion Enterprise Forum or the LCF scholarship that sponsors 10 MA students every year, or the return of major brands like Burberry, Clements Ribeiro and Jonathan Saunders to London Fashion Week under his ongoing chairmanship of the BFC – alongside behind-the-scenes figures like hairstylist Guido Palau, make-up artist Pat McGrath and casting director Russell Marsh.

Of course, the current kings of the high street Sirs Philip Green and Stuart Rose had to be on the list. Green is the noughties version of Cher’s computerised wardrobe in the film Clueless, telling us all what to wear and how to wear it on a daily basis, while supply chain guru Rose paves the way for us woolly liberals to shop sustainably. My only real problem with the list is the ubiquitous inclusion of Green’s best pal and the Daily Mirror’s favourite news story, Kate Moss. While she may have her own range for Topshop – who doesn’t? – she has been slipping down the best dressed lists, and her uniform of skinny jeans/ankle boots may have inspired a million bland copycats, but there are other models who wake up everyday and put clothes on in a more original and innovative way than her. MIAOW

Then there are those on the list that most will have never heard of but will have absorbed, by fashion osmosis, the influence of people like Mandi Lennard, Lulu Kennedy and Louise Wilson (hooray for all these women on the list!). If you’ve recently started having plastic dreams about Melissa shoes when the words ‘vegan’ and ‘footwear’ would usually be completely anathema to you, look no further than Mandi Lennard, PR for the Brazilian label amongst other fashionable favourites Gareth Pugh, Roksanda Ilincic and House of Holland. She has tremendous clout in the industry working with big fashion houses like Burberry, while simultaneously recognising and providing support for new talent. The tangled interconnectedness of the industry creates opportunities for fun games of Six Degrees of The Power List. One of Mandi Lennard’s clients is Danielle Scutt, graduate of Louise Wilson’s Fashion MA at Central St Martins. Another alumnus of the same course is Christopher Kane, currently seen making lots of money for Philip Green at Topshop as is Kate Moss...see, fun!


The Power List
Alexander McQueen CBE
Anna Whiting & Sam Gainsbury
Anya Hindmarch MBE
Christopher Bailey
Dame Vivienne Westwood
David Bailey
Erin O’Connor
Guido Palau
Harold Tillman
Hilary Riva OBE
Hussein Chalayan
Joan Burstein CBE
John Galliano CBE
Kate Moss
Louise Wilson
Lulu Kennedy
Mandi Lennard
Naomi Campbell
Nick Knight
Pat McGrath
Russell Marsh
Sir Paul Smith
Sir Philip Green
Sir Stuart Rose
Stephen Jones

Kid Page (not the 26th one on the list)