Victoria Beckham
“What excites me about this collection is the strange mix of colors, which is something we touched on last season but has now really become part of the DNA of Victoria Beckham,” said the designer after her show at the Italianate 19th-century Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. The ’70s-inspired collection of wide-lapeled tailoring and ruffled silk dresses came in a palette of neutrals with the occasional high-voltage kick of a vivid jewel tone: deep purple, emerald green, turquoise, citrine. “There is a strangeness that really works,” she added. “All the neutrals together look a bit wrong — but that’s actually what makes it right.”
Marques Almeida
Returned to London Fashion Week with a show at the Old Truman Brewery in East London, not far from where Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida first started their brand. If a sense of grandeur could be felt in the collection’s satin puffball skirts, brocade suits and feather-trimmed silk pajamas, it was only heightened by the collage of video clips from Alfred Hitchcock movies and snippets of Old Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe that played in the background. But the tougher side that the label is known for was still in evidence, seen in motorcycle leathers and frayed denim, which the designers said will be produced ethically and sustainably with closed-water systems.
Molly Goddard
Known for her frothy mille-feuille-like tulle creations, Molly Goddard confidently took her designs in a new direction in her latest show, held in an Art Deco recreation center. Her smocked dresses were more streamlined than usual, and the designer experimented with denim for the first time — albeit on dresses embellished with three-dimensional flowers. Many of the pieces, including knitwear, came strewn with velvet ribbons. The British model Edie Campbell closed the show in a new rendition of the designer’s signature: a pink cotton tiered dress with a ruched bodice and an open back.
Michael Halpern
Michael Halpern’s show started with sequins and ended with even bigger ones. The New York-born designer has established his fledgling business with a shimmering disco-ball look that has a distinctly nocturnal spirit. This season, he devoted his show to Barbra Streisand and her seminal role as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” (1968). There were gold flares and voluminous opera jackets, sweeping capes and an array of gowns and cocktail dresses that glittered with sequins and crystals — not unlike the antique chandeliers that formed the backdrop for the show.
Matty Bovan
One of London’s most beloved young talents, has become known for his wild and whimsical shows. For his latest, the designer introduced a series of more approachable styles, such as leg-of-mutton blouses, paneled combat pants, neat military jackets and bombers. That didn’t stop him from pushing the boundaries in other areas, though. If anything, his forays into more wearable clothes seemed to encourage an altogether more abstract proposition later in the collection, which included panniered gowns with neon laced corsetry, wide mantuas and oversized sculptural pieces draped in vivid Edwardian prints.
Simone Rocha
Took inspiration from the Irish tradition of Wren Day — a festival with origins in Celtic myth in which a fake wren is hunted on December 26 — for her latest show, held in a dilapidated theater in Alexandra Palace, the 19th-century entertainment venue in North London. According to the custom, on the day after Christmas, boys dress in straw costumes and process through their neighborhood, singing songs door-to-door — “sort of like trick-or-treating,” explained Rocha. Hence, raffia was intricately woven with pearls into cross-body bags, worn over voluminous lace-trimmed smock dresses and embroidered white shirts. Elsewhere, dramatic evening wear had exaggerated dropped waists and antique furniture prints, further adding to the show’s emotional depth.
For Spring-Summer 2020, Simone Rocha staged her most dramatic show to date in a restored Victorian theater which, until recently, had been closed to the public for 80 years.Source: CNN
