london fashion week: j.w. anderson
(images via lfw)
when opt first reviewed j.w. anderson’s womenswear collection for the a/w 2011 season, i wasn’t exactly sure where it would go or whether it would catch on. probably, i though, but little more, wondering if his intensely edgy london streetwear-cum-boyish aesthetic would really invigorate the press (and public) for more than a couple of seasons. after all, there didn’t seem to be more than a couple of scant reviews floating about at the time.
but six months later, for the designer’s s/s 2012 show, it seems that everyone is ready to lengthily rhapsodize over his pieces, from grazia all but proclaiming his line the next balenciaga, and the telegraph’s extended article about the designer announcing “You want to be that girl in the narrow boyish trousers and slimline tailored jacket, the ankle-length navy-blue kilt with a skinny belt, or the blue paisley silk pleated skirt worn over a pair of narrow silk paisley trousers with a hint of neon orange.” okay, so a star is born, again. what does that mean, exactly?
mr. anderson’s collections aren’t easy to read, and while he himself described the show’s inspirations as “(m)onochromatic, rich meets poor and man meets natural,” to lfw, grazianoted that “(o)n first reading the show notes we couldn’t decipher just where the collection could go: convent school girls, craft turned mechanical and artist Robert Rauschenburg…. The result? It was at once sporty (looks like it’s really the no.1 trend for next season), still boyish, a little sci fi and somehow pretty girly, too” (and style quoted the designer as saying it was about “a schoolgirl raised by nuns, finally escaping the convent”).
this manifested, as style went on to explain, as “deliciously warped dissection of the quotidian uniforms of both the male and the female of the species. For example, the striped cotton of a man’s shirt (one of the plainest menswear clichés) was transformed into a fitted jacket patched with leather and matched with slim pants, both laced as efficiently as any dominatrix’s gear. The concept of the cardigan was flipped and stretched into a dress with trailing sleeves as tails. And the schoolgirl’s pleated kilt was rendered in brown leather and attached to a perforated vest to make an elongated, sleekly athletic waistcoat.”
another article in the telegraph proclaimed that “A woman could piece together a substantial tranche of her wardrobe from the stripey cotton pyjama style suits (think men’s shirts) the wrap and flap patchwork dresses (think flapper then dismiss, because the referencing was more subtle than that) and yes, the masculine pleat front trousers. That’s impressive. So were the details: the blanket stitching that seems already to be one of his signatures.”
as the designer told the telegraph, “This season was a tipping point for me. I think I’ve become obsessed with this idea of making things sharper, more modern, and in a weird way a little bit more f***ed [sic] up. I used to work at Prada as a visual merchandiser and it is making people want something that they never wanted, and putting a polythene bag with silk taffeta, really mixing those textures together. It is a big risk bringing so many elements to a table to try to make it tasteful. I was thinking, what is relevant for now?”
so it seems to have worked. from his unlikely materials such as faux swan feathers and plastics to the almost collage-like effect of several of the pieces [as those dresses with sleeves dangling from the hip, as at top and above, which the telegraph wisely deemed “a bit too fussy (no wardrobe has needed a dress with sleeves dangling from the hips since 1983)”, though i could still see some of the coolest of the cool girls somehow pulling them out as moderate successes], there were often ideas that felt, well, rather…ugly, and yet somehow, like, cute-ugly. the shades of prada and balenciaga were long here, indeed.
but for it, i’m not sure if i could always approve, exactly. yes, the show was artsy-futuristic-tribal (remind you of any other houses?), but sometimes i felt it was rather too considered, too targeted at ensuring the packs of hip it-girls come running. maybe that’s not a bad thing for today’s designer, and maybe such as strong signature look (especially this early on in a label’s life) is only a point of pride, but there’s a certain elitism that imbues itself with this notion, too. it isn’t easy for the ‘everyday’ woman to integrate these pieces into her own wardrobe. but let’s consider it a success and leave it there. i’m only left with a slight gnawing feeling, but that could be my own apprehensions about the industry’s politics. everyone else, it seems, is deeming mr. anderson the next in a long line of kings.
london fashion week: ann-sofie back
(images via style)
last season i gave ann-sofie back a skeptical side-eye in opting to show only her cheaper ‘back’ collection at stockholm fashion week, while preferring to trot out her main line here in london (this season she showed nothing of her own in sweden—she’s also cd for cheap monday—apparently getting my message). but as i said then, in drawing inspiration from disparate ideas as mocking people’s bad second life fashion choices (f/w 2010), it’s difficult not to give the woman a little love.
that could be nowhere more true than for her latest effort, s/s 2012, which, she told the lfw site, she drew her ideas from “God, spaghetti and delusions” for. maybe that’s just her sense of humour, though, because style reports that the collection was inspired by the idea of “exploring the Scandinavian concept of jantelagen [ed note: read a good description of that at let me tell you about sweden], which defines a whole set of cultural values around the suppression of individuality.”
apparently the scant, 24-exit runway show was split between the designer’s main line and the aforementioned cheaper ‘back’ collection, but i’m unsure it flowed in such a way that one seemed variegated from the other (as in, say, donna karan’s two lines). thus (and maybe it’s a cop-out), i’m going to treat them as if they were one and if you wish i was a better writer, i’m with you there. anyway, save for a splash of cotton candy pink, the colour scheme was typically scandinavian, with black, gray, navy, bone, and white, which looked all the more shocking and dramatic given how many crayon boxes we’ve observed this season.
“Back’s Atelje collection had an austere simplicity, with a lot of the action going on in constructed detail and fabric selection,” wrote style, adding that “Elsewhere, the Back clothes were defined, largely, by this season’s narrow belts. Strung just above or just below the waist, the belts operated as a kind of visual punctuation for pieces that were otherwise pretty straightforward.”
there were also some interesting layers, unexpected cuts that left stages, almost like stairs, and a strangely sexy quality that seemed at once highly clinical, planned and yet the result of chance. thus, shoulders were left exposed, breasts were glimpsed through the sheer fabric of a shirt, and slices of skin shown through oddly seductive cut-aways that revealed a patch of underarm or side. there was some silky draping as well, but this was (i think) part of the back collection and a little less exciting than some of the show’s earlier, structured pieces.
ms. back isn’t an easy designer to understand, and i often leave collections just as confused as going in. it doesn’t add to the puzzle to see her accessible, almost cheery clothes at cheap monday, and to wonder how she leaves that to come work on collections based on crushed insects and the like. but perhaps that makes her more enjoyable, because we question it more, and certainly offers a good argument for the investment in her pieces. after all, how many dresses do you have that provide contemplative material while sitting at the bar alone after your date has headed for the bathroom?
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