London Fashion Week: Headonism, Paul Costelloe, Eun Jeung, Emilio de la Morena, Bora Aksu, Sass & Bide, Aminaka Wilmont

No doubt this is a very special edition of London Fashion Week since it marks 25 years of British fashion.

This means that the British media are currently pumping the event up as a celebration of style, rather than just an event to try and resurrect an industry in crisis.

The major faux pas in this celebration of style was obviously Mayor Boris Johnson, a rather unlikely style icon, but the perfect sponsor for the big crowds of hypocrites that hang around assorted fashion events.

Style was restored soon thanks to a very special event entitled “Headonism”, curated by legendary milliner Stephen Jones.

The event brought together a new wave of emerging London milliners J. Smith Esquire, Little Shilpa, Noel Stewart, Piers Atkinson and Soren Bach who showcased five couture pieces from their forthcoming S/S10 collection.

Sitting around a moving tableau created by artistic director Michael Howells, models wore rather flamboyant showpieces while a classically arranged version of Joy Division’s "Love Will Tear Us Apart" played in the background.

There were oversized cherries, fetishistic harnesses, armadillo-like headdresses, cascades of flowers, ropes and beads creating complicated structures on the models’ heads, fur turbans, pieces that seemed to reproduce in their movement the waves of the sea and even headpieces that lit up.

It was a rather unusual and bizarre event, the sort of stuff that can only work in London.  

Paul Costelloe reinterpreted classically stylish clothes in a modern key.

While the first dresses and trouser suits played with the timeless brown/white dichotomy, as the catwalk progressed there was more emphasis around the shoulders that became well sculpted and rigid and transformed into robotic wings.

Fabrics also became and important point: luxurious flowery silks in white or peach and golden prints appeared on the runway, reminiscing the fabric of qipao dresses or the flowers in Japanese gardens.

Menswear was less interesting, though Costelloe successfully transferred in his men’s jackets the sculpted shoulders he used in his designs for women.

Young designer Eun Jeung mainly focused on two colours, white and silver, in her collection, creating the perfect wardrobe for a space age woman.

It was interesting to see a young designer including in her collection also slightly more mature pieces such as jackets with bejewelled buttons, the sort of stuff you usually see in the wardrobes of women over 40, yet there was one major mistake in her collection, over-embellishing things a bit too much. In fact there were cases in which the frills, ruches, embroideries and pearls almost overshadowed her tailoring.

The presentation also didn’t do her justice as her talent stands in the details and it is quite difficult if you’re just sitting in the audience spotting intricate beaded embroideries or origami-like folds and pleats.

Maybe Jeung should have taken a lesson in frill control from Emilio de la Morena.

There were one or two moments when it proved irresistible for the Spanish designer to fall into the ruffle trap and he came up with a grey sheath dress in which ruffles ended up reproducing a sort of frilled maid’s apron.

The rest of the collection was rather sensible and sculpturally interesting with fabric elements swirling around the body, over-imposed layers of chiffon opening up like fans and interesting inky prints or bondage dresses built using different straps of fabrics, that contrasted one with the other.

de la Morena mentioned Eduardo Chillida’s works among his inspirations, but I guess the main link between the designer and the artist stood more in a shared respect for their materials of choice, be it fabric, metal or granite.

Bora Aksu is still struggling to find a balance between Amazons and romantic women, though he is as usual showing an interesting research into materials.

For his Spring/Summer collection Aksu fused on post-modernist and Victorian influences.

Rock’n’roll jackets with beaded lapels will easily be among the best selling items from this collection, but the most interesting pieces were ivory lace shirts, skirts and men's like trousers.

There was actually a sense of gothic decadence in Aksu's lace dresses: black abstract motifs seemed to be over-imposed on the dresses or creeping over the models’ legs and bodies, giving them a disturbing Alexander McQueen-like touch.

Sass & Bide’s catwalk started on an optical note, with black and white motifs printed on trousers and jackets, but, as things progressed, the duo moved on to explore opulent influences Cleopatra-style with long and short dresses characterised by intricate beadwork and also gold sequinned harem pants (avoid them unless you’re a regular at Poiret’s fancy parties…). As a whole the collection was acceptable, but quite often slightly repetitive.

Maki Aminaka Löfvander and Marcus Wilmont's first designs were characterised by an earthy palette. Sea blue prints were soon introduced, transforming the models into mermaids.

Little by little, almost without realising it, the mermaids on the catwalk turned into warriors, almost modern interpretations of revengeful maenads, with broken bird wings decorating their hair and corsets made of leather fringes wrapped up around their bodies.

It looks like also at London Fashion Week, designers are sharing Rodarte’s view of strong women, creating collections for Amazons rather than ordinary women.  

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