What next? Anya Hindmarch, the designer responsible for catapulting a seasonal accessories presentation into live entertainment territory, one-upped even herself at her show on Tuesday. Hindmarch, who in the past has staged shows involving dancers on wires, singing and dancing handbags and Broadway-style performers, cooked up a fun fair that involved giant spinning florescent teacups and dancers in skeleton costumes grooving across a moving catwalk.
After the first few exits, parts of the catwalk and the floor under the audience began to rotate slowly in opposite directions, as models walked serenely, toting Hindmarch’s latest collection. Then the lights went out, and giant glowing teacups — bearing shiny balloons and filled with catwalk models and bags — appeared, while black-clad dancers, the bones on their costumes glowing in the dark, did their routine.
The designer said the show was a coming-together of all her childhood dreams. The bags themselves had a kooky, childlike feel to them, too. Hindmarch put a new spin on her classic styles with adhesive leather stickers — googly eyes, rainbows, fried eggs, a thumb’s up, blobs of ink — the list continues.
“I am obsessed with stickers — the kind you had when you were a kid,” she said. “And I’m obsessed with personalization. I like the idea of messing up a snakeskin bag with a lot of stickers.”
Some bags had conversation bubbles with phrases like, “Bags have feelings, too” and “Phwoar!” — a British-ism roughly translated as “Wow, you’re hot!”
Leather bags in shades of florescent orange, yellow and pink also came with hole-punched smiley faces. Hindmarch introduced a pile of small leather accessories to hook onto the bags, such as pencil-shaped pencil cases and colored tassels. The stickers went on sale immediately following the show on Net-a-porter.com.