Mood board: Smith’s label is one of British fashion’s most notable success stories. Travelling around the world at the start of his career in the 1970s, he was drawn into the burgeoning arts scene of New York, visiting galleries like OK Harris, Pace and Leo Castelli. S/S 2020 channelled a ‘scruffy elegance’ inspired by the artists he met there. Tailoring was shrugged on and treated like painter’s overalls. Oversized jackets and blousons were worn layered. Skinny trousers were pinched, gathered at the calf. Standout was a series of double-breasted suits in yellow, pink and grey, worn with same colour matching boots.
Scene setting: The catwalk space was set to zero in an all-in-white room. The stripped back staging had freshness to it, like a studio waiting to be covered in the drips of new artworks. The colours of the season popped. The soundtrack, composed by Andrew Hale and Peter Smith, collaged together jazz tracks that kept the mood buoyant. The models strode to the pulsating beat of Sons of Kemet who are having something of a fashion moment, fresh from performing for Nicholas Daley inside Mary-at-Hill church during London Men’s Fashion Week. Loft jazz was the soundtrack to Smith’s state of America.
Sound bite: Double-faced silk was quilted with a cobweb design and made into jackets. There were pinstripes on recycled polyester cargo pants and a matching matte cotton suit jacket. A longer fluid line was introduced to double-breasted suiting, with a wider shoulder on soft plongé leather pieces. ‘The collection is packed full of modern tailoring. I’ve taken fabrics that are unexpected in suits – recycled polyester, silk and lots of technical fabrics that you’d expect to find in sportswear but in tailored garments,’ Smith said. There’s a real optimism to the palette with colour building from dusty pink and sage to bright blues and yellow. ‘It’s a collage of different colours, textures and fabrics.’ §
