By: Leisa Barnett Follow @leisabarnett
Todd Lynn and Daks
A souped-up, sexed out show by kicked the shows into a new gear, it felt, for those of us sitting tonight, raspberry Collins in hand, in the The Box, Sohos most star-powered cabaret club.
With the unrelenting storms having put a literal dampener on the opening day of the shows (note to NY: you dont know what youre missing), here was a red-lit, sartorially ordered haven.
In a palette of black, with occasional moment of brown and grey, came dress coats that were blazers on top, segueing at their dropped waists into pleated skirts, and dresses with moulded cups for breasts. The woman is always dark, always seductive, but here there were moments of formality given a glam-over: pinstripe suits shots through with silver and accented with fur stoles dyed in highlighter green; fabric belts so wide they cinched the waist-like corsets.
Tailoring was a major draw on day one of London shows, with the city that boasts Savile Row flexing its design muscles on commercially solid collections with beautifully cut pieces. At , a celebration of 120 years resulted in the inevitable focus on the brands key codes: most overtly, its house check, which criss-crossed over everything from tights to bags, to the just-visible linings of coats.
Its a tricky business, though, this creating new to celebrate something old. Creative Director Filippo Scuffi made a bold, if unsuccessful, attempt to deconstruct the trench coat: beige, belted ballgown, anyone? But we really do hope those bearskin hats are going into production.
There was a Japanese vibe to Amanda Wakeleys collection, which comprised kimono-sleeved blouses and wide obi belts cinching in everything from evening dresses to coats. A black-and-white water-spot print and some snakeskin broke up the heavy tones of black, brown and teal (see a theme emerging here?). There was lots of leather we loved it in the bubble-shaped skirts and dresses and, neatly, zips that unzipped to form the splits up the back of pencil skirts and ankle-grazing dresses.
Breaking all the rules as usual, Fyodor Golan showed something that was nothing like any of that at all. In an out-of-town venue that saw neon pink astro-turf coat everything from pillars to benches to the catwalk itself, their autumn/winter 2014 offering, Crocodile, was inspired by design duo Fyodor Podgorny and Golan Frydmans travels through Burma and Cambodia.
The draping of Buddhist robes was filtered through the lens of urban street style to result in a club-couture collection - all bunchy metallics, high-necked coats, hooded fun furs and plasticised dresses (not to mention one made entirely of Nokia Lumia 1520 smartphones). Juxtaposed extremes fascinate us, they noted. The masculine and feminine, the fragile and fearless as with the character of Mathilda from Luc Bessons film Léon.
Thats a whole lot of references for one tight collection. But these boys know what theyre doing.