The biggest news during London Fashion Week didn't relate to clothes, but to the fact that the Queen turned up at Richard Quinn's runway show that took place Tuesday afternoon at 180 The Strand.
Sitting next to supreme fashion dictator, Vogue's editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Queen Elizabeth II, seemed to enjoy it all: she smiled, listened to what Wintour had to say and, at the very end of the show, awarded Quinn with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Prize for British Design.
The rose-shaped award, designed by Angela Kelly, Her Majesty's personal assistant and senior dresser since 2002, will be assigned on an annual basis to a designer who's made a contribution to society beyond their fashion designs. Quinn runs a print studio in Peckham, south London, that is open to other designers and college students, so he seemed like the perfect candidate for the first prize of its kind.
Enlisting the Queen was a major coup for the British Fashion Council - you must admit that New York, Milan and Paris can't compete with that. They may have poseurs, celebrities, influencers and a few dodos - pardon - fashion critics, but these fashion capitals definitely do not have a 91-year-old monarch sitting in the front row.
But what about the clothes? Well, Richard Quinn is a very young designer who's become known for his bold and bright floral prints. He got a BA in Fashion Print and for that first collection, showcased in 2014, he split classic couture gowns in two and then restitched them together in mismatched and clashing colours and prints.
The Stella McCartney foundation then sponsored his MA studies: his style evolved and, in 2016, he came up with a collection in which mysterious masked models were covered in quirky floral designs.
Among the inspirations for his early collections there were the Haute Couture designs of Dior (where he interned), but also the upholstered figures created by artist Paul Harris. Yet in that collection the emphasis on faceless models and floral boots ended up evoking a bit too much Margiela's designs.
This connection with Margiela returned during Tuesday's runway: the show featured once again faceless models, quite a few of them wearing scarves as a tribute to the Queen's Balmoral attire.
There were a lot of retro floral prints, obviously created at the designer's print studio, matched and mismatched in pleated dresses, bomber jackets, and theatrical silver foil capes and gowns.
Floral bodysuits and thigh-high boots also made an appearance and the final effect rather than being extremely original was more Ken Scott-meets-Leigh Bowery meets-Margiela-meets the Queen-meets Comme des Garcons's A/W 2012 collection.
The English country garden inspiration was also remixed with some Mugler in the (infinitely less interesting) motorcycle looks - think a Dior bar jacket clashed with a motorbike jacket and matched with cascades of polka dots ruffles for that Strawberry Switchblade touch and a snake print body-con dress accessorised with a motorcycle helmet and elbow-length PVC gloves.
There were also quite a few connections with other designers: his foil capes called to mind Alexander McQueen's billowing black cape and Balenciaga's 1950s bubble dress, both recreated in bright metallic shades. Quinn also moved from Balenciaga's iconic baby doll dress for one of his floral creations.
Speaking of Balenciaga, there were quite a few links and connections with the French house's recent collections designed by Demna Gvasalia. You may argue in Quinn's defence that Gvasalia steals from Margiela and that Quinn's 2014 collection anticipated some of the trends that became dear to Gvasalia (they both borrow from Margiela and maybe they started borrowing from each other as well?).
The connections between Quinn and Gvasalia were probably generated also by the styling of the presentation that also included models wearing wigs that seemed to be made with stainless steel sponges in the fashion of Comme des Garçons' A/W 17 collection.
The presence of the Queen and the emphasis on themes, ideas and moods taken from other designers (but not highlighted by critics too intent in hiding such connections in an act of voluntary censorship to convince themselves they may have just found the next big thing...) ended up casting a shadow on Quinn's colourful hand-made experiments.
In a way these links and connections made you suspect that, despite his experiments (in a previous collections Quinn produced a floral frock integrating a houndstooth bodysuit without seams in the pattern), Quinn is not yet a fully-fledged fashion designer.
He may have a passion for hand-painting and printing florals on his dresses, but he has some weak points when it comes to shapes, silhouttes and pattern cutting, elements on which he could work to develop a more personal style.
Quinn is going to have a busy year with collaborations with Debenhams, Lane Crawford, Matchesfashion.com and Liberty (the second one) lined up. Yet you wished they would let him grow up a bit more since, as things stand, he may risk disappearing in 1 or 2 years, the time to give the media and Instagram another victim - pardon - young designer, to call a genius and another member of the royal family to award them.
Still this collection prove that times have definitely changed: hard to think the Queen would have gone to see an Alexander McQueen's show and appreciated the late designer's dramatic interpretations of the Highland Clearances or saluted as an act of creative genius live worms sandwiched in plastic corsets.
But maybe not having the Queen at your show is not so bad, after all, fashion is supposed to be anti-establishment and at times even disturbing. When the establishment and the oi aristoi nod and applaud, you must really worry because it means that fashion has lost the power to annoy and destabilise people and hasn't got anything rebellious to say (at Quinn's show everything was too civilised, with the odd tear appearing when "Visions of Gideon", the final track by Sufjan Stevens on Academy Award nominated film "Call Me By Your Name", closed the show).
As for Quinn, maybe he should be given a bit more time to discover his real vocation before he commits to the super saturated women's wear market. A career as textile or interior designer would probably suit him better and would even avoid him to fall into too many copycat traps.
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