Amid frantic efforts to create vital moments, appoint the right celebrity ambassadors and awe audiences with spellbinding runway sets, Jonathan Anderson is instead returning to the building blocks of fashion.
He used only four materials for his spring women’s show — cashmere, leather, silk and sequins — and still managed to razzle-dazzle ’em.
This JW Anderson collection was youthful, punchy and fun, hinged on simple cuts, short hemlines, trompe-l’oeil prints and tutu-like protrusions.
Models whisked through a bright, vaulted room through neat rows of white-cube seating, all feet shod in low-slung, zipper-flecked leather boots that are a surefire hit.
The bare legs and edgy footwear accentuated the girly, but tough energy Anderson was after, fed by the furious beats on the soundtrack, courtesy of Grimes, David Guetta, Valentina and others.
The designer loves to tease the eye and tickle the mind by transposing, supersizing or disguising clothing archetypes and details. Hence the coin-holding part of a penny-loafer became the main detail on a handbag; a grey hoodie a photo-realistic print on a silk shift dress, and a big leather throat latch a commanding detail on a short, bubble-shaped silk mac.
“I always like a bit of trickery — something where you do a double take,” Anderson told reporters after the show.
Knitwear was suggested as a trompe-l’oeil print on a silk shift, followed by the same dress in actual knit, rugged hand knits, loose sweaters slashed to approximate an egg beater, and finally a comically huge intrecciato.
“The raw material in fashion ultimately is the exciting part of what we do, because it has endless amounts of ways you can interpret it,” the designer mused.
So how to interpret the large, typewritten text that appeared on some clothes? It was lifted from an essay on design by the late English art critic Clive Bell, but Anderson used it as a metaphor.
“Starting from a new blank page ultimately,” he said. “I think fashion needs to narrow a bit, to kind of refocus somehow its eye.”
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