The Reviews
Chalayan
Easy, cool and lightning-quick.
Hussein Chalayan’s show took place on a little pedestrian street across from his Mayfair store, and the setup was refreshingly simple, with all guests standing, Mother Nature providing the lighting and models carrying their own music, via little boomboxes that came straight from 1986.
There may have been a complex, interesting back story to the clothes — Chalayan is passionate about what he does, and his collections are often underpinned by sociopolitical and historical themes — but the collection itself was a breeze.
There were stripes galore, on suits with ties at the waist and down the leg, on cotton shirts and billowy or flat-front trousers and on collarless tops. Trousers and shorts were rolled at the bottom, some came with flaps or folds, while lightweight shirts were boxy or had rounded shoulders and elbow-skimming sleeves.
Silhouettes were languid and made for hot-weather climes, and Chalayan shaped them with a drawstring here and a snap, knot or buckle there.
While he may have begun with the idea of dance and movement among ethnic groups colonized by Western nations, and about the tensions between indigenous cultures and their occupiers across the centuries, he ended with the most democratic of collections, which should suit any body shape under the sun.
— Samantha Conti
Charles Jeffrey Loverboy
After years of referencing classic literary works, from “The Rake’s Progress” to “Peter Pan” to the poetry of Dylan Thomas, the designer staged a show at one of his spiritual homes, the British Library, not only a great research institution, but home to the vast book collection of King George III.
Jeffrey showed a wild, disjointed collection against this backdrop — a glass tower at the heart of the building — with poetry readers joining a catwalk full of torn-up, painted-on, punk-edged, and flame-bright clothing for every sex, gender or personality able to tune in to Jeffrey’s colorful, weird — and generous — aesthetic.
The music — bits from The Clash — started, stopped and then started again while poets pronounced weighty verses. Then the clothes appeared: dresses with ragged-edged, rippling pleats; Twentiesstyle drop-waist dresses with bejeweled belts; a punk-y green plaid suit with wrinkled and puckered pockets; and flame prints placed on dark sweeping capes or knit minidresses.
It was all too much, and that’s just what the elegant Jeffrey, with his inkblack manicure and matching beret, was aiming for.
The designer said he wanted to channel the freneticism and tension of daily life, and to address “our overburdened hearts and minds.” He chose the library because “it’s the great equalizer,” a place where the written word rules, and where anyone can become empowered.
While the show was wild, there was also commercial sensibility here, with Jeffrey focusing on textile development and techniques in India, drawing inspiration from nurses’ uniform dressing during the Forties, and working his original painting and designs onto the garments.
Jeffrey may be a sensitive sort — loverboy, party boy and London eccentric — but he is no fool. This season, one of his priorities was “to pay more attention to product,” and “honor” the retailers selling his merchandise.
Creative and commercial: That’s fashion business by the book.— S.C.
Edward Crutchley
Edward Crutchley transported his audience to another world with his spring 2020 co-ed show, which was all about the glamour and grandeur of times past.
There were tinges of nostalgia with references of a bourgeois Britain in the Eighties and early Nineties — seen in the abundance of pretty Laura Ashley-esque florals or to references of the 1969 Ikea advert “Chuck out your chintz.”
“In Europe, at the moment, we have a real cultural problem with nostalgia. We hung on to it, and I think Brexit or the rise of the right in general is about that longing. So it was interesting to think about why we’re nostalgic and specifically look at that time in the early Nineties in Britain, before it was a cool place, when it was all about that chintz, floral, tweed, bourgeois-ness,” said Crutchley backstage.
Elsewhere the abundance of bows on the shoulders of dresses or on satin brogues, complete with operatic music in the background — produced by Michel Gaubert — brought to mind French court dress, while the sense of ease on a series of Hawaiian shirts and pastel-hued loosely tailored suits, added a contemporary edge.
While Crutchley moved through an array of references, his message remained consistent: Great-looking, easygoing clothes that can translate as well on the shop floor as they did on the garden of the Haberdashers’ Hall in East London, where his show took place.
Since launching his label three years ago, he has proved his commercial acumen and ability to quickly expand his scope well beyond the printed textiles for which he first became known.
Here, he sprinkled signature prints on silk shirts or jacquard dresses which featured hand-painted illustrations of parrots and vivid florals, respectively. But his ability to play with volume, rich color and draping equally stood out. Among the highlights were dramatic taffeta capes, sleek cigarette pants and balloon-sleeve dresses worn with large “Sunday best” taffeta headpieces by Stephen Jones.
“I wanted it to feel expensive, rich, very contemporary. You can still have comfort but be incredibly chic, that’s where you can play with volume and fit and drape,” added the designer. — Natalie Theodosi
E. Tautz
Usually, the soundtrack at London shows draws from decades of British talent — punk, pop, reggae, hip-hop and techno — but Patrick Grant of E. Tautz was having none of it. For the close of his romantic spring show, he picked Barry Manilow’s 1974 track, “Mandy.”
“I like to think the mood of this collection was upbeat, like early Barry Manilow,” said Grant, who built his polished, laid-back collection on his favorite Seventies and Eighties silhouettes, mixing and layering tailored and casual clothing, denim and streetwear with aplomb.
Colors and patterns evoked Seventies interiors, spanning lavender, brown, orange-pink, rust and robin egg blue. They were inspired by the wallpaper and upholstery in the images of Tish Murtha, a documentary photographer who focused on Britain’s unemployed youth in that decade.
Silhouettes were languid. Breezy, billowy shirts came in light blue with windowpane checks while others had flowers or angled pockets at the front.
They were paired with baggy denim or cotton trousers, more fitted pleat-front ones or even shorts.
Tailored jackets in sage or rust rubbed shoulders with bright, roomy knitwear and sweatshirts that had a polished edge thanks to snappy geometric patterns across the front.
Grant, who also owns the Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons, swerved questions about the return of tailoring after a deluge of streetwear on the catwalks.
“Tailoring looks great when it’s allowed to be normal, to be clothes — and not ‘a thing.’ You can wear tailoring with jeans, shorts, tailored and untailored trousers. This season we even made ‘suits’ out of shorts and baseball shirts,” said the designer. —S.C
Iceberg
James Long isn’t one to hold back. His spring 2020 collection for Iceberg was a loud, colorful concoction of head-to-toe neon looks, bright patchwork prints created with artist Peter Blake, large logos, fishnets, retro ski sunglasses and all that is trending.
The idea: To mix the brand’s Italians roots with London’s eccentricity and punk heritage — and to just keep enjoying the process.
Long is definitely having fun. Since taking the helm of Iceberg, he has dreamt up collections where Snow White hits the club in studded leather harnesses or Snoopy takes center stage on intarsia knits.
This season, Mickey and Looney Tunes characters made flash appearances on oversize T-shirts and sweaters in the form of distorted illustrations, but it was Blake’s Pop-Art graphics that featured most heavily all over denim, matching crop jackets and knits.
They showcased variations of the U.S. flag with the word “Amerika” printed all over.
“Subliminally there is a statement, I’m in Italy, I’m English, my mum is Irish, America is a problem. I thought it was really relevant for now,” said Long backstage.
While the focus on denim and sporty tracksuits remained, there was a heftier dose of tailoring added to the mix. But Long’s version came in bright neon shades, light fabrics and loose, gathered pants.
“I wanted to elevate this idea of sporty tailoring even more, which is how Italians live. Then we also added the punk chains to fuse the two [aesthetics] together,” mused the designer. —Natalie Theodosi
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen decided to show men’s wear in a presentation format, rather than on a runway, but the brand refused to dial down the drama.
The opulent collection, full of Japanese references, black lace, silver bullion, and a cascade of black ribbons looking as if they were swiped from a Victorian widow’s weeds, debuted at one of the brand’s favorite London venues,
The Charterhouse, a medieval maze of buildings and manicured gardens resembling a Cambridge college. The backdrop for creative director Sarah Burton’s rich offer was a wood-paneled room with a pianist performing in the corner.
Models posed in the sort of clothes that would have made Beau Brummell and his fellow dandies weep with envy, including a fuchsia pink wool suit with trompe l’oeil double lapels, a tuxedo jacket inlaid with delicate black lace, and a lineup of tailored jackets with silver bullion and crystal embroideries spilling down the lapels.
Burton went heavy on hybrids, splicing together different silhouettes, similar to what she did for women’s pre-fall 2019. A dragon design flashed from the satin bomber jacket sleeves of a black frock coat and a cotton satin boiler suit, while embroidered images of cherry blossoms adorned the long scarves spilling from the necks of white tuxedo shirts.
Hand-painted blossoms appeared throughout the collection, as bright watercolor smudges on a long, lightweight leather coat or as a scattering of carefully drawn flowers across the front of a suit jacket.
Among the highlights — and there were many — was a long black coat with layers of ribbon-like ruffles on the skirt, made from surplus fabric from past seasons. It was a nod to the sustainability ambitions of the house and a wink to the iconic lady in black, Queen Victoria, whose bicentenary is being celebrated this year. —S.C