LONDON FASHION WEEK A/W2011-12 - TIM SOAR

Where Tim Soar has previously sought to sharply realign menswear, forging progressive fabrications, and transgressive, though still erudite, silhouettes, the past three seasons have been marked by the pursuit and reinterpretation of menswear classics. Sportswear nuances have forever infiltrated Soar’s work, from the early elasticated cuffs hems to barely there parachute outerwear, and for AW11/12 it is their subtle inclusion that informs a quiet revision of menswear staples.

Adhering staunchly to the devil in the detail adage – underlined with paper bag masked mannequins - so relevant to traditional tailoring, an oversized duffle is tweaked with a broad funnel neck collar, a down-filled blouson in rich cream reinterprets naval and militaria for the current bomber boom whilst buttonless blazers, coated lapels and raglan sleeved varsity jackets in raw, utilitarian wools and hues of bottle green and midnight navy elevate the athletic to elegant restraint.

Fulfilling the “Him\She” tenet promised by the collection’s title – and so many of London’s showings from first timers to former menswear designers –  womenswear appropriates menswear detailing. A tuxedo dress is shorn of weighty sleeves and belted with a displaced cummerbund whilst a raw-seamed blazer is cropped to the natural waist and paired with a fluid, long line pencil skirt.

Images by Sam Wilson.
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LONDON FASHION WEEK A/W2011-12 - JAMES LONG

 

Though menswear’s prominence amidst London Fashion Week’s schedule continues to rise, see Hamish Bowles’ presence at the majority of today’s shows, it’s telling that, as JW Anderson’s dalliance with womenswear pitched him into press and buyer limelight, it may well be James Long’s Fashion East supported womenswear showing that elicits the greatest reaction.

With a consideration of today’s collection; a concise, honed expression of Long’s aesthetic both editorially and commercially viable, this would be...well, a disservice. London’s unshakeable master of knits, conceits of strife and trouble, of duality and of the unsettled informed a dusky spirituality, rendered in soft, bruised hues of dove gray, lilac and charcoal.

Moving through brushed blanket come Buffalo check knits bristling across bulky crombies, dropped yarn knits bursting into languid oversized cables at the chest, graduated, space-dye stripes dusting shawl collar cardigans and straight, elongated sweaters graduated from an opal to charcoal fade indicative of waning sunset light; washed watercolour shirting rendered in puddle silks and floor skimming cowl collar cardigans crowned couched, slouched silhouettes.

Accents of titillating patent leather and burnished ponyskin tussling across sleeveless biker shapes broached a harder edge to represent “sinister...hallucinations of black holes, arson and riots”. That Long can translate such machinations of the mind into covetable, seductive and romantic garments confirms his strength, be it in men’s or womenswear.

Images by Duilio Marconi.

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LONDON FASHION WEEK A/W2011-12 -JW ANDERSON

Jonathan Anderson has always revelled in the critique and redefinition of gender. From the heaving, floor-trailing bustles of AW 09/10 to the beaded skirts and slick, slender shift dresses of SS 10, the collusion of a deft hand and narrative invested vision have seen romance and rebellion coalesce, menswear tenets embraced and concurrently rebuffed. Where producing a companion womenswear collection could have extinguished the effeminate subversion slicing through his menswear, a turn to ‘The Fear of Naturalism’ instead sees contrasts of gender and sexuality by their very notion shot down, man and woman, feminine and masculine enmeshed. 

A thus appropriate mirror image of the womenswear collection that stomped tomboy strides through Somerset House’s Portico Rooms on Sunday, the first exit – a slender navy knit, clerical white shirt and sharp black slacks came topped with a tied waist jumper come skirt, a motif that has peppered the last two seasons. Clean, crisp and endowed with a whiff of Miuccia Prada – never a criticism – this knitwear riff kicked off a passage that took in flocculent mohairs, interspersed with quilted and embroidered panelling and sequin peppered argyles in a collision of Westwood seditionaries and revived retroisms.

Sliced away at the torso to reveal a curving acre of unsullied shirting or cut and pasted to envelope the arms of a staple white shirt, the casting of pin-thin models topped with harsh Teutonic bowl cuts, exacerbated Jonathan’s subversion of the existing, his boys an angular futurist dissertation on corporate, office bound suits. Moving from city to country, Loden jackets came both cropped and taken to full-length, dissected, reassembled and repurposed with Harris-like tweeds backed by sportswear nylons, bursting tufts of Mongolian lamb, bulked-up silk paisley sleeves and pleated panels of skirt, trailing from the bottom hem.

An accent of skirt evolving to full garment, sweeping floor length kilts gave a nod to past glories, made masculine in drab, workwear navy’s and teamed with deft, high breaking blazers, sharp at shoulder, square at hem. Amidst a harsh, mechanical palette of navy, black, gray and white, searing saturated shots of hospital scrub green and charged pepto bismol pink were enriched in titillating latex, as full garments or as a singular strike at waist or collar. 

The dishevelled, Grunge layering of Fall polished and the Sixties psychedelia of Spring finessed with placement paisley; bulky Bovver boots and workshoes trimmed with tufted fur epitomized the evolution of JW Anderson - from menswear designer to fully fledged brand, exploding tired definitions with pure naturalism.

Images to by Duilio Marconi
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LONDON FASHION WEEK A/W2011-12 - CHRISTOPHER SHANNON

If the Central Saint Martins’ MA show can be judged as a projection of London’s menswear talents, aesthetics, visions, then sportswear and elegant athleticism still troubles the capital like no other. Firmly taking the mantle from Kim Jones - though recent movements at Dunhill might encourage a return? - current proponent of all things casually conceptual, Christopher Shannon moves away from the sundrenched pastel patchworks and collaged camo of Spring to tackle tribal.

A natural fit considering the way in which gang colours and terrace tracksuits constitute today’s street troubling tribes, Shannon broadened his vision to overleap the pulsating Balearics of Spring and land amidst the photojournalism of Pieter Hugo and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. At first pieces deployed the collection’s wordly reference with a subtle hand – panelled shirting, sweatshirts and down-filled Macs segmented into fur, aertex and depressed quilting in deep crepuscular blacks and inky navy, a spare, spartan representation of the way in which “old track tops that have ended up in landfill sites are worn by tribes”.

Graphic black and white prints, ears of corn and thick abstract floral squiggles kicked off a more literal address of Shannon’s Peruvian influences that continued to take in intricate embroidery. At first peppering shirting with a singular stripe at the chest before blossoming to full, tasselled panels and flap-down pockets christening glistening, patent rucksacks, the undulating, fluted forms progressed to inform fluted, Balenciaga ruffles.

Spiralling around trackpants and tiered to infuse brutal rude boy shirting with purposeful hyper-femininity, Shannon – much like JW this morning – tempered the effeminate with his customary cast of charged-up streetboys and a hard, crisp palette of navy, white and lilac.

images by Duilio Marconi.

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LONDON FASHION WEEK A/W2011-12 - CHARLIE LE MINDU

Bookended by blood-dripping nudity crowned with a ‘Violence’ headpiece and the master of ceremonies himself, ambling out in a brutalised butcher’s apron, a barrage of ear-piercing, blood-curdling screams soundtracked Charlie Le Mindu’s perverse,  provocative ode to Salon Kitty, sodomy and Carrie.

Emerging from inky black and peppered with searing, retina assaulting strobes, Daphne Guinness, Pandemonia and a bevy of glammed-up buxom front rowers, saw Le Mindu’s now trademark nudity give way to wipe-clean plastics, regal up-dos and pearl-trim trenches. If blood-red lips, alabaster skin and poised, coiffed locks spoke of a new, purposefully elegant execution, then nip-slip halter-neckdresses, plastic plied, moulded and teased into marabou trim capes, Elizabethan ruffs and pearl trim military caps struck a subversive balance of post-conservative, anti-establishment chaos.

Delicate doilie lace came riffed against Kings Road Mohicans dipped in blood red, brutal strikes of graffiti slashed hair, garment and skin with THE profanity and dripping crucifixes. His couture coiffure taking a comparative back seat, gas masks spewing razor straight blonde locks and sharp centre parts crowned the boys whilst it was a taxidermied eagle taking flight, leaving behind a trail of lace – once again –  dragged through blood red that concluded a collision of faux innocence  and blatant brutality.

Images by Katy Davies.

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