LFW diary: Black, white & Daphne all over at David Koma, Mark Fast and Giles

I knew the David Koma show would be black and white and dotty all over when Daphne Guinness ⎯beer heiress, patron saint of designers and stranger to colour ⎯arrived. Sure enough, the first look was a super-minimal cream sheath with black leather dots, in rows of varying size, appliqued on sleeves and skirt. Then came a black wool capelet and a swingy leather midi-skirt, both perforated with great big polka dots. The circle motif spiralled into delightful madness: swirling patterns; leather and wool mashups; screenprinted, polka-dotted faces. I hated only the blog-rave soundtrack and, in that spirit, the balls of fun fur Koma tacked onto otherwise great pieces. He’d have been better off leaving black and white alone. Would Daphne wear a kool-aid blue fur peplum or a sun-yellow stole? I don’t think so.

Mark Fast began in monochromes, too, shedding spring’s rainbow fringe. First, a series of knits: layers upon layers of extruded wool mushrooming around the shoulders of a belted coat, or the collar of a mini-anorak, or the mermaid bottom of a gown, all in palest greige. I don’t know what you call this kind of knit; I’ve never seen it before, and surely that was Fast’s point. He has been accused, not wrongly, of taking a signature ⎯the cobwebby, holey-cool patterns in his clingwrap knits ⎯too far. His opening salvo proved critics wrong.

And then, black leather. Fast’s collaboration with Danier is very exciting for the homeland brand, but he doesn’t seem all that jazzed about it, frankly. There were boxy t-dresses and a wicked pair of overalls, but nothing that looked either new or Fast-like. They’ll be doing a capsule collection, available in Canada, based on this show though, so you’ll have to see for yourself. If this is any indication of the collab’s viability though, I went to get miso soup and a packet of crisps at Pret A Manger after the show, and as Sarah Lerfel of Colette was loitering outside, I asked what she thought. She said she liked the newness and cool simplicity of the leather pieces. What do I know?

Then to Giles! The great eccentric held his show in the Royal Court of Justice, a splendid place you can enter only after scanning everything you hold, as if going through airport security. For a flight of fancy? I thought. And how! Wow. In the past, Giles shook up his ladies-who-liquid-lunch elegance with oddball clubby influences, or twisted beauty with wit. This was something much different, at once darker and purer. Sounds of Zola Jesus echoed chamber-like; the first look was half nun, half courtesan. I drew a sharp breath.

When I interviewed Giles for this magazine (look for it in the April issue!), he hinted at his inspirations for the season. Ahem: “I’ve wanted to do something a bit more pulled back in a certain way, a bit stricter. Spring/summer was really upper-clubby in a funny way, a lot of it, and I wanted to do something a bit darker, more moody, and a bit stricter and severe. Not in an S&M way… a bit more like Maitresse, an old Barbret Schroeder film which is like an S&M film, but just a bit, I don’t know, a bit stricter.”

So there were high collars and ruffs, and many a corset, and a soft haunted print (which also formed the show’s backdrop) taken from a Delaroche painting of a blindfolded lady. In two words: repressed sexuality.

Then came the grand dames in their goat furs and couture-level laces and brocades. How can so much muchness feel so right? It had the spirit of Master Balenciaga, when he was feeling particularly Catholic, and a little bit of Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy too. But for an embodiment, there’d be no one better than Ms. Guinness and I imagine she’d agree.

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