“The idea of modern cocktail wear — it’s an exercise in fashion,” was Jonathan Anderson’s explanation for his fall collection, paraded through narrow corridors to underscore “the idea of a silhouette in an interior.”
There was a drop of Pierre Cardin in some of the miniskirts with their wired, coiling ruffles, and wide trapeze tops in Neoprene so stiff the models’ knuckles almost grazed the noses of the spectators. But everything oozed that quirky cool that is Anderson’s specialty.
A quote left on every seat from famed English interior decorator David Hicks, who shot to fame in the Fifties, was a clue to the bold color and decorative impulses on display. Leather ruffles fanned out from skirt hems in Life Saver-type candy stripes, and even sprouted from the handles of handbags. Anderson also zhushed up tuxedo shirts with bands of leather riddled with grommets, or vast panels of gleaming silver studs.
Excepting a few long, monastic dresses, Anderson largely made a case for two-piece cocktail dressing, with satiny track tops tucked into pouf skirts; or quilted jackets teamed with ruched jodhpurs with blobs of volume sometimes awkwardly placed.
Deliberate awkwardness is also something of an Anderson signature, making his cocktail ladies all the more approachable.