Show after show this week in London, the Y.B.D.’s were designing like it was 1995. Topshop’s Unique collection, in the hands of the stylist Katie Grand,
mined the junkyard-rave aesthetic of the cult classic “Tank Girl” to mixed results. Charles Anastase’s “autobiographical” collection paid homage to the unsung icons of grunge — think the D.I.Y. style of Kelley and Kim Deal, of the alt-rock band the Breeders, and Rayanne Graff, the too-cool-for-school character played by A.J. Langer on the teen drama “My So-Called Life.” Chances are that only the hipsters who crash his shows will be savvy enough to appreciate this.
Louise Gray, who for the past three seasons was a darling of London’s young designer launch pad, Fashion East, presented her first solo collection at the Soho House, but the show was the opposite of stodgy. Inspired by “body painting” — a favorite pastime of ravers, besides sucking on pacifiers — Gray’s use of devoré leggings and high heels (she collaborated with the shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood) was actually quite chic. Her two-piece denim overalls, adorned with shards of metal on the chest, had a surprisingly industrial edge to them.
Sadly, many of the other ’90s-inspired collections failed to offer anything new, sticking to a formula of sprayed-on dresses and chunky knits. Still, a number of fall collections in London were noteworthy for offering an idea of how British fashion might in fact move forward. Christopher Kane paired slouchy sweatshirts with paper-thin dresses anchored by thick black stripes, suggesting fragile tomboys. Richard Nicoll showed tailored lab coats with undone lingerie elements in shades of Storm Trooper white, cream and pale pink — as if George Lucas had art-directed Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour. Nicoll wasn’t the only designer blinded by science. Both the palette and the prints at Marios Schawb were based on the red-cyan spectrum of an anaglyph image. It was hilarious watching the audience use the show’s invite, a pair of 3-D glasses, to look for hidden meaning in the Technicolor prints.
In a green-lit, smoke-filled outdoor space, London’s only remaining provocateur, Giles Deacon, showed a collection that gave you goose bumps. The International Herald Tribune fashion critic Suzy Menkes complained of the loud noise, which was in fact a musical performance by the band An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump D-Bird C-Bird X-Bird (phew). But I think the ear-splitting sound was the point. Deacon combined the urgency of a punk concert with the craftsmanship of a Chanel show. Afterward, he said he had wanted to update some of the looks he had done throughout his career — his use of wool with fur, for example. But it all felt very new. And at the very least, he’s got his head in this decade.
14 years ago
