London Fashion Week: Giles Deacon goes back to Black Adder for a knockout collection
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Ballooning sleeves, silvery hues, intrecciato warrior-woman bodices and billowing silk gowns. Giles Deacon sent out a fantastical procession of knockout pieces, but what in the world (or, indeed, what out of this world) did it all mean?
'Black Adder!' guffawed a jubilant Deacon as the crowds rushed to congratulate him after the show. 'The sleeves, the bodices, that stretched-out leopard print, it's all about Black Adder,' he clarified.
But what about the 1970's maxi dresses in palest baby-breath pink? The swinging lilac car coat woven with glimmers of silver? The Jane Birkin black micro minidress? And the mushrooms of outsize woolen beanies worn throughout?
‘I borrowed the costumes from Black Adder for a shoot with Kate Moss in about 1996,’ explained Katie Grand, the show’s stylist, in a bid to lend clarity to the cryptic Black Adder reference. ‘He’s been obsessing about it for months now, and I don’t know what he remembers from that shoot but it’s turned out well.’
It certainly did turn out well – fantastically, in fact. Right from the moment Kristen McMenamy glowered her way onto the runway in a puff of white silk, we were ensnared. Laser-cut leather dresses in the palest of antique gold, swishing fringes of studded gladiator leather hanging from the hips, and goddess gowns that took up the whole width of the catwalk as they breezed down.
These are not clothes for everyday wear - a billowing swashbuckling sleeve and lengths of trailing white silk would be tricky to pull off down the local - but they are clothes to fantasise about wearing. In a season full of real-woman staples and recession-conscious investment pieces, we all welcomed the pure escapism of fairytale garments to transport us to another place. With Baldrick, of course.
