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 - LOUISE AMSTRUP

With designers seeking new ways to strike the emancipation offered by the onset of minimalism, Louise Amstrup – much like Marc Jacobs in New York – offset sharp, unfussy forms with sententious femininity. If Spring/Summer signalled the flighty evolution of her stark aesthetic, then – anchored in the inspiration of Natural Born Killers’ Mallory Knox – autumn welcomed an elegant stomp through rebellion.

From sharp Zoot-suit crombies, strong but not overpowering at the shoulder, pitched in nubby, asphalt wools and peppered with sharp patent panels to the subtly Mod-ish shapes of slender crew neck shifts panelled vertically in bands of silk, wool and leather, crisp structured silhouettes stood both as a literal invocation of empowered women through the decades and as a visual representation of hard, sharp insurgence.

A foil to such blatant severity, hyper-femininized Fifties forms – hinted at with cropped, voluminous sweaters that bordered on bulbous and the sinuous silks of wide-leg trousers hitting high on the waist, classic oxford shirting and pixel print floor-length eveningwear - came realised in skater-skirt shifts. If curving, flirtatious gowns and classic shifts read as apple-pie housewife, the collection’s patent leather refrain – picked up in a panelled hem, angular darts edging toward the bust and most notably, glistening, wet-look skull caps offset the retro with a timely slither of S&M subversion.

Images by Katy Davies

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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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