Why everyone was crying at the Craig Green show

Tears aren't often shed at London Collections, but Craig Green's show this morning proved to be the exception. The London designer's first solo show outside of MAN saw audience members in the front row crying over his stunningly poetic SS15 collection, with more than a few watchers describing how uncommonly "emotional" the show was.  

"You have moments in fashion where you think, this is what it’s about, this is why you do what you do," Dazed editor Isabella Burley describes. "Everyone was taken out of their reality and pulled into his world."

Green sent down barefoot banner men in what he described as a "silent protest", layers of fabric serenely rippling in the wind to "Caribbean Blue" by Enya. (You can read the full show report here.) As he took his bow, the audience erupted into cheers and applause. "I've never heard clapping like it," one watcher tweeted. "One American store buyer's hands nearly dropped off."  

Green graduated from Central Saint Martins under the tutelage of Louise Wilson in the same year that LC:M began and has ridden the new wave of menswear since, with the occasional hiccup – in an interview with Walter van Beirendock, he recalls how his first SS14 show for MAN became fodder for "trashy newspapers" (one of which labelled the collection "Vivienne Waste-wood"). 

But Green transcended to another level with today's show. "It's hard for any independent designer in London," Burley says. "But something like today is what London menswear is about – it's about having people like Craig, supporting them, and letting them come into their own."