London Fashion Week (LFW) has become a serious barometer of world fashion and one of the “Big Four’ global style runway events along with Paris, Milan and New York Fashion Weeks.

Lighting any fashion event properly is a carefully balanced equation of pressure, precision and politics. Nick Gray of creative London-based lighting design practice, Renegade, this year again designed lighting for the main British Fashion Council (BFC) Courtyard Show Space at Somerset House for LFW’s recent Autumn/Winter (AW) 2013 event.
Gray also lit a series of high profile “offsite’ shows, including Rocksander, Vivien Westwood, Mark Fast, L’Wren Scott, Kinder Aggugini and Pringle.

BFC Courtyard Show

It’s the seventh season that Gray has lit the BFC Space, which features up to five or six shows per day for a plethora of leading designers including Marios Schwab, Issa, Emilio de la Morena, Bora Aksu, Jasper Conran and numerous others.
His main objective is to make sure that the light on the models is optimised right along the runway for the world’s press to be able to get the best photos and videos of the featured collection.

The delicate mix of science, art and experience that this requires is a lot more difficult than it sounds, and has been honed to a fine art over the last five years or so, since Gray shot to prominence as a fashion LD with fresh and innovative ideas about how to light the genre.
Working for show producers Bacchus, Gray’s BFC space lighting design for AW2013 featured a three truss format overhead – centre and two sides – running the full 25 metres of the catwalk.

The set this year featured a wider entranceway for the models and an elegant chevron-shaped wood and black carpeted runway, all of which required a few changes to the lighting from previous seasons.
Around 170 ETC Source Four profiles were rigged on the overhead trusses and used to make up the front array, while the entrance and back wall was lit with 10 strategically positioned Svobodas, all carefully masked from view.

Lighting was operated for the shows by Paulus van Heijkant who is one of Gray’s regular crew, running a Chamsys MQ100. Renegade’s crew chief was Alex Murphy.
Highlights included an extra show for Mario Schwab, for which Gray added a specials package of active sunstrips positioned along the edges of the runway, cross-lighting it at floor / foot level, plus ten Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300s fitted with custom rectangular gobos which were positioned on various rigging bars. A hazer also helped to ramp up the atmosphere.

To create a more dramatic visual effect, the Schwab show used only the extra package lighting and the centre row of profiles on the overhead truss.
The LFW event also morphed into London Fashion Weekend, which saw the installation of a stage and a live performance by Labrinth in the BFC space, for which Gray rocked up the lighting substantially, adding 12 Martin Professional Mac Auras, 12 x Clay Paky Sharpies and a bunch of strobes.

L’Wren Scott

Working offsite offers many additional technical and creative challenges to lighting in a more conventional environment like the BFC space, but it’s also extremely rewarding, and has given Gray the chance to work in some of the most charismatic, interesting (and often well hidden) venues in and around central London.

One of his favourite off-site shows this year was for L’Wren Scott, who the scene for her prominent LFW debut with a banquet style seating arrangement at number 1, St George Street.
Unusually guests ate a meal – prepared by fashionable caterers to the stars, Cellar Society – while the models swooshed by on the runway; a set up that created a real stir and a completely different atmosphere.

“It was an amazing grand room – in which I’d not worked before – so that always makes it a lot more exciting,’ explains Gray. “The table decor was absolutely beautiful, and the waiting staff were all choreographed to be part of the show and serve the platters at exactly the right time and with the correct flow and movement. It was a full sensory experience.’

Added to that, the audience was oozing with A-listers, beautiful people and VIPs!
Gray added to the glamour and luxury of the occasion, lighting the room with an abundance of gelled Source Four PAR floor cans, to enhance the rich golden architecture and detail.

Making sure the lighting rig didn’t distract from the space was key. Scott wanted no overhead trussing and nothing to obstruct the windows or the eye-catching architecture, so a huge front array of lights was integrated into the press riser, rigged with 45 variable Source Four profiles.
For back lighting, two single “stick’ towers were installed out of shot, also rigged with nine Source Fours each, and the tables were lit with a textured golden wash of light that helped build the initial atmosphere and enhance the overall elegance.

Vivien Westwood

This is another favourite of Gray’s – he relates to Westwood’s strong personality, individuality and hyperactive imagination.
There wasn’t a dull moment when she revealed her Red Label collection at the Saatchi Gallery this AW13 season, taking over a whole floor of the venue for the show, delighting the crowds with her rapacious talent and ability to shock and bring a simmering fusion of rebellion, idiosyncrasy and inspiration to the catwalk.
Gray’s lighting design built up front arrays of ETC Source Fours in each of the galleries for photography positions and integrated these with the overhead house lighting, which resembled large light boxes. Show producers were My Beautiful City.

Tungsten or daylight?

“The decision on which colour temperature to choose is usually undertaken by a combination of the LD and the designer. It also depends on the room and the actual collection, particularly its colours,’ expands Gray. He discusses the subject intensively with the designer/s and the house photographers before lighting their shows.

Daylight adjusted incandescents / tungstens can sometimes appear a little murky, so for daylight shows he prefers to use MSR or HMI lightsources where possible for a crisper, more real daylight white.
The drawback is that these are usually less controllable and rarely dimmable, so you can lose that essence of theatricality that tungsten so effortlessly offers.

Thinking out of the box

The key to being a successful fashion lighting designer – apart from being good at lighting – is also being flexible enough to work in all sorts of spaces and places, dealing with practical parameters like low ceiling height, limited power and little or no rigging opportunities plus restricted access for getting kit in and out. And of course, incredibly short turnaround times.
“Basically being able to think out of the box and not being scared to experiment, there are many ways you can approach all of these challenges and not all of them are conventional,’ says Gray with relish.

His experiences in rock “n roll, theatre and lighting and designing corporate events in crazy locations all help him bring that different and diverse approach to fashion show lighting that is proving such a success.
Next on Gray’s fashion calendar is June’s “London Collections – Men’ also for the BFC. He has also designed lighting for comedian Eddie Izzard’s world tour, which has just kicked off in Europe and comes to SA in June.

Nick Gray is one the UK’s best known international fashion show lighting, set and visual designers. His clients also include rock bands such as Kasabian and he creates video sculptures and other innovative art works combining new technologies, imagination and a sense of fun.