There are different ways to look at a runway: if you're a critic, one of the most obvious is reading the collection notes to learn more about the inspirations or the materials used in a specific collection. Yet there is also the fun way to look at a show, consisting in trying to spot in the designs visual correspondences that may come from other fields, such as art, architecture or interior design.
Take for example Christopher Kane's S/S 20 collection: showcased during London Fashion Week, it was entitled "Eco-Sexual", and focused on Kane's current interest in sustainability (he has indeed been working towards turning his company into a more sustainable venture) filtered through his obsession with anything sex and sensuality.
The main idea for the designer was celebrating in this collection people who are in love with nature and who want to be in touch with the earth. This inspiration was clear in the designs with prints of an East London park with flowers blooming in Spring.
Nature also emerged in the paisley patterns (being Scottish, this pattern should have been an obvious choice, but it actually looked out of place in the collection) and in the dresses with petal cut outs (that seemed a development of the motifs seen in Kane's S/S 14 collection).
In the case of a white broderie anglaise blouse and a dress, the flower motifs were abstracted and called to mind Charles Rennie Mackintosh's (the Scottish architect has often been an inspiration for different fashion designers for his geometrical patterns and prints) Art Nouveau sensuous lines and curvilinear shapes, found for example in the projects for his House for an Art Lover.
Who knows if behind the accessories (boots, sandals and bags) and behind some of the black leather designs including a skirt and a jacket there maybe have been an interior design connection.
These designs incorporated indeed gem-like silicone elements in bright colours that seemed to evoke Joann Westwater's confetti pieces of furniture with their doors integrating colourful pieces of glass placed like falling confetti.
Kane also added a cosmic inspiration to the collection with space-inspired silver chainmail dresses (evoking Versace's oroton designs...), illustrations of the moon, cloud prints and star prints on dark dresses embellished with crystal and spherical decorations that hinted at planets.
These designs with the metallic planets shining around the neck or being used in functional ways like buttons evoked Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard (better known simply as Grandville)'s satirical prints of imaginary universes from his 1844 volume Another World.
Written by Taxile Delord (according to Grandville's notes; the volume was no more than a framework for Grandville's drawings), the book featured a loose plot about the adventures of three characters who end up discovering several worlds, after they decide to explore the universe in order to sell their stories to a publisher.
And while such correspondences may not have much to do with the actual inspirations behind this collection, they seem more fun as they provide us with a different (and less superficial) perspective from which we can explore fashion. Feeling inspired by Grandville's illustrations? You can download Another World here (Download Grandville_AnotherWorld).
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