Dynamic duos kick-start London's week at centre of fashion world

The design duo Antoni & Alison stayed true to their irreverent roots when they kick-started London Fashion Week yesterday.

The duo, who met at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 1982 before making a partnership five years later, were celebrating 25 years in the business – a grand achievement by any measure.

"We have been looking to make these pieces since we were students," they said. "It's only technology that has allowed us to make them now."

Techno-craft was evident in a series of silk dresses printed with layers of trompe l'oeil. Images of feathers, jewels and sequins were layered on top of jumbo tweed, knit and tartan prints. A slim silhouette ensured the bold and colourful prints were rooted in the wearability that has seen them through the last quarter century of retail.

Fyodor Podgorny and Golan Frydman, the married couple behind Fyodor Golan, winners of Fashion Fringe 2011, celebrated their graduation to the fashion week schedule in proper Gothic grandeur – showing the influence of Frydman's stint at Alexander McQueen. Grand in its ambition, inspiration came from "Russian peasants and royalties" and the myth of Anastasia Romanov.

Glimmers of iridescence on top of a rich colour palette of black, red and emerald mimicked the ornate exoskeleton of an "insect that changes itself for protection". Leather was sculpted, quilted and burnished in bronze and became an otherworldly armour.

Bora Aksu's collection was childish and mature with printed florals blooming over pencil skirts and pleated blouses, cashmere prism knits, puff shoulders and pussybow necks.