At a socially-distanced London Fashion Week, the womenswear designers staged a series of appointments and mini salon shows, released films and lookbooks. In essence, their
Matty Bovan
Bovan’s fashion week shows are ebullient spectacles, charged with drama and extravagance. Film doesn’t come close to conveying the depth or detail of his work but Bovan’s curiosity is nevertheless boundless. In a series of what the York-based designer called ‘battle-ready shapes’, he showed patterns fecund with blooms that recall the chintz bedding at his grandmother’s house alongside distressed motorbike leathers and overdyed leftover fabrics inspired by 16th century costume. They were shaped in dramatic proportions that command attention. Even on mannequins, they had presence.
16Arlington
Marko Capaldo and Kikka Caventi unveiled a new direction for spring. Inspired by water, the effect purified the design process in search of “new glamour.” It’s something they define as “clothes that don’t wear the woman, the woman wears the clothes: they emphasise, enhance the beauty the woman has already.” It includes bias-cut crushed velvet dresses, silk pyjamas, duvet-style ballgowns and buttery leather outerwear and corsetry. She might be more streamlined but the 16Arlington girl still wears her dancing shoes.
Richard Malone
The mandated lockdown prompted the Irish designer to essentialise, to reconfigure his work for a new world. He stripped back some of the theatre and landed on “rigorous comfort.” He wants the wearer to find solace in weighty, substantial eveningwear, in bouclé tailoring, in crushed velvet blouses and in silk-like wool crêpe. He modified his signature shapes, nipped waists and rounded shoulders, to build a streamlined wardrobe full of “clothes you want to climb into, to run away in.” The armour he created, which values personal indulgence in opulence, looks like it could weather any storm.
Sonia Carrasco
Spanish newcomer Sonia Carrasco said that working from home produced dynamic results for her collection. Digitising allowed her team, who worked from home, to efficiently design and prototype dignified tailoring in burnt orange and stone hues with asymmetric folds, eyeleted button ups shirts with matching trousers, and single-breast jackets that function as dresses in recycled, organic or vegan materials that were produced in local workshops, which pay homage to the designer’s native Seville.
Phoebe English
Ever devoted to sustainable fashion, English’s pared-back silhouettes act as a salve to troubled times. Simple, effective, and driven by comfort and wearability, she created a reliable set of 8 patchworked and quilted from existing fabrics, dyed from locally-sourced natural resources and food waste, and using zero-waste pattern cutting methods, English’s soft pre-shrunk crinkled layered up muslin trousers, duvet coats and reclaimed silks are tactile and warming - responsibly done.
Supriya Lele
Having taken a year off fashion shows, Lele staged a series of appointments on Monday during this London Fashion Week. She is one of many who adopted an essentialist mindset, stripping her collection back to a minimalist-leaning procession punctuated with a cocktail of bright blue draped slip dresses, shimmering buttoned vest tops, and low-rise skirts and trousers revealing a thong strap. The aim, she said, was to channel “sexual confidence” after months spent indoors in joggers.
Susan Fang
Fang’s models were one part celestial and one part psychedelic, a mixture that purported a positive spirit and hopeful intentions. Dresses with ethereal layers of organza embroidered with feathers and printed with florid watercolours bring one somewhere Fang defines as “a place where it feels safe and dreamlike floating between nostalgic moments of childhood and renewed energy.”
Charlotte Knowles
It is always a thrill watching design duo Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault sharpen their vision as each season passes. This season’s film, shot by Harley Weir, the two leaned into “an empowered but disruptive vision of femininity, dangerous and sensual” by plumbing the depths of the ‘flower power’ movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Suede outerwear added a sturdy edge, denim gave their work a grounded appeal, and their underwear-as-outerwear was distilled to functional pieces perfect for empowered post-pandemic dressing. Craft-intensive, the two said, “lockdown made us even more passionate about design, developing SS21 was a source of joy.”