Ab Fab’s Bubble set to storm the catwalk at London Fashion Week
Last year Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson brought Paris Fashion Week to a standstill when they stormed the catwalk at Valentino in March.It looks like London Fashion Week will have its own Zoolander moment this season, as Bubble from Ab Fab is going to make her catwalk debut.
The Telegraph can exclusively reveal that Jane Horrocks,who plays Bubble, will walk in the Vin + Omi show on Monday evening and a number of the cast will be in the audience.Designer Omi, who worked on several of Bubble"scostumes for the Ab Fab: the movie,explainedto The Telegraph that when they were filming one day Jane said to them:""I have never walked in a fashion show before.Can I walk in your show?"And I was like "err yeah, you"re 5ft 4 butwhy not!"It was one of the things on her bucket list.So it"s turning out to be an Ab Fab show this fashion week."
Although he can"t reveal what she will wear or if she will open or close the show, Omi says:"It"s going to be brilliant and more a Vin + Omi show, but then our shows are always ridiculous anyway so she will fit in,but we need to make her stand out."
As for her walk, Omisaid:"Jane has been practicing!She can walk super well in heels.I worked with her on another project after the filming and she was wearing these ridiculously high heels and I said "Jane you"re going to break your legs."And she was like "noo no, look at me strut!"She knows what she"s doing and it"s one of the things she"s always wanted to do."
Vin + Omidesigned a number of Bubble"s looks for the film.Omi explains how the partnership came about:“We have been friends with Jennifer Saunders for a long time and last season the day before our show the wardrobe director called us and said we wanted to meet and do something for Bubble.A couple of hours later we got a call saying Jane Horrocks wants to come to your show, and she didn"t even know we were in discussions to dress her."
"We did 38 drawings for one look we were going to do and then it went crazy," Omi says of her costumes."The next thing we knew we were dressing her for everything.It was pretty organic how it happened, because Jane was hooked on the idea of us making Bubble relevant now.We started thinking about modern lingo andhashtags.Out of all of the characters, Bubble can be very relatableto the younger generation rather than the Ab Fab generation."
Designing Bubble"s costumes was a huge production:"We only finished the costumes on the last day of filming in November, so it was a long, long process.I can"t tell you what outfit it is, but one of the looks took five girls three weeks to make non-stop.The latex catsuit that has been picturedwas all done by hand and that took about four weeks to make non-stop."
His designs have already got the thumbs up from one of the biggest names in fashion:"The first day we went on set and Jean Paul [Gaultier] was there and Jennifer came out and said "have you seen what Vin + Omi have done?"My heart dropped and then Jean Paul put his thumbs up and I was like "phew!Approved."