Mood board: In today’s frenzied fashion landscape, where images are consumed with incredible velocity on Instagram, designers are stepping back to refocus and reassess their output. In London, JW Anderson was fascinated by ways of perceiving, and how we focus on silhouettes and details. For spring, Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli offered a ‘study on withdrawing,’ taking everyday silhouettes, like the shirt, pencil skirt and the Bermuda short, and imbuing them with the extravagant Couture sensibility which he is renowned for. Ensuring the ‘ordinary becomes extraordinary,’ the designer took the form of the white shirt dress for the show’s opening looks, reinterpreting it with ballooning bell sleeves, as a mini dress swathed in ostrich feathers, with a ruffled bib or oversized starchy bow. Elsewhere, his mastery in colour came in ruffled gowns in neon green silk georgette and fuchsia taffeta, and tropical landscape scenes, inspired by Fauvist forms, embroidered onto kaftan shapes and column dresses.
Best in show: The show’s opening white series had a particularly pared-back ethereality, both splendid yet simplistic in its construction. Elsewhere, a hot pink short suit had all the slouch of spring’s most popular tailoring silhouette, and a Lacroix luxuriousness when paired with a transparent blouse with a trailing pussy bow collar.
Finishing touches: There was an extravagant elegance in the show’s accompanying catwalk jewellery, which included bauble like golden cuffs and huge chandelier earrings dangling with encrusted flowers and colourful monkeys.
