London Mayor promotes British fashion in New York

At the start of New York Fashion Week London, Mayor Boris Johnson hosted an event with the British Fashion Council to champion British fashion in America.

While he may simultaneously have been promoting his new book on Winston Churchill, Johnson has been a staunch supporter of the fashion industry, playing an important role in London Fashion Week and in the expansion of the city’s fashion colleges.

“We believe strongly that fashion and design are central to the future,” Johnson stated. “Fashion is an industry that probably employs about 900,000 people in my country, and generates direct and indirect GDP of 49 billion pounds. It’s of huge importance.”

A spread of influential Brits came out to greet the mayor, including Alexa Chung, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville of Rag & Bone, Luella Bartley and Anna Wintour.

Johnson, who was born in New York and holds dual citizenship said of British fashion: London’s better,” he said. “We invented bondage trousers, and the suit. Every single man in this room is wearing something that was invented in London. And we do it better than everybody else,” he boasted.

Image: Boris Johnson & Anna Wintour NYFW