Still Original After 40 Years

There was a certain intimacy to the crowds outside the shows at London Fashion Week, which turned 40 this month. Aside from conjuring feelings of togetherness and pride, that milestone underscored how the approach to style in London — off and on runways — is different than in New York, Paris or Milan.

That approach can sometimes be written off as too funky or too laissez-faire, resulting in a perception that London Fashion Week attracts “not serious people” (to quote Logan Roy from “Succession”). But the event’s loudest critics seem to be those who complain about how, in other fashion capitals, they just see versions of the same thing.

It is true that London’s fashion scene is smaller, quieter and weirder than others. That hasn’t stopped the city from becoming an incubator of nascent fads — or from becoming a place where disparate trends are amalgamated in ways that create entirely new dress codes.