Imagine a Victorian heroine who has awoken from a drunken romp in a chilly hunting lodge, then hurriedly redressed, pulling her skirt on inside out, throwing her corset on over the top of her shirt and not quite fastening the hooks so that panels hang loose, missing buttons on her woolen blazer, perhaps she throws her lover’s greatcoat on over her shoulders before she has to dash back to a life of well-mannered propriety. That was Louise Trotter’s rich vision for fall. And it worked.
The designer had been looking at period dress from Victorian times and, in particular, the way in which clothes become personalized over time, either through wear or by design. “What I discovered is that the structure inside of the garments, when you turn the clothes inside out, the internal part of the garment revealed more, and had more interest, than the external,” said Trotter after the show.
For example, the rust wool coat with mohair panels and sleeves that had tabs on the outside that would usually be sewn inside a jacket to close it. Or the inside-out corset that was strapped over a chunky wool black and white herringbone dress. The corsetry references ran throughout and looked fresh as girdles, especially the stone wool one that was worn over a pre-Raphaelite dress of the same fabric, or the pleated cream dress with left-open hooks and eye closings that was suspended over a black-and-white collarless shirt; it was clean and romantic but without the sentimentality.