This season’s crop of Fashion East designers channeled the rebellious, experimental spirit that’s long been London fashion’s calling card.
Caitlin Price’s collection was the most appealing — a slick lineup of streetwear in luxe fabrics, blending “elements of mid- 19th-century dress with mid-Noughties casual wear,” he show notes said. Consider a fuchsia tracksuit done in shiny duchesse satin appliquéd with rosettes, or a pair of low-rise navy track pants stitched with floor-sweeping, satin panniers at the hips and paired with a satin bustier top. Price’s tableau of youthful models, their hair done in kiss-curls, their fingers busy texting on mobile phones, balanced the haute elements with a London edge.
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Ed Marler’s cast of real-people models hammed it up on the runway, wearing the designer’s deliberately bad-taste looks that took their cues from British television characters, cockneys, and even “The Chinese Girl” painting, a fixture of many a suburban sitting room in the Fifties and Sixties. Among the designer’s costume-y creations were silk track pants with corset-like stitches up the thigh, louche-looking, polka dot silk dressing gowns, and a long shearling coat tailored into an hourglass shape.
Mary Benson’s static presentation also had a high-octane, theatrical feel, with iridescent colors and skinny silhouettes that nodded to Seventies glam rock. Benson’s designs included tailored, kick flare pants speckled with a pattern of metallic diamonds and coins. There were also figure-hugging asymmetric dresses and baby doll halter dresses, one printed with Benson’s dark take on Disney’s Bambi character.