In London, the Sexual Language of Flowers

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/fashion/At-London-Shows-the-Sexual-Language-of-Flowers.html

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LONDON — Not since Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual paintings has an artist made so much of the sexuality of flowers.

But this was the fashion artist Christopher Kane who electrified London Fashion Week on Monday with a collection that swelled and slithered across the body, following the rise and curve, revealing skin through metallic-framed petals.

At the same time, the collection was about the sweetness of pink color; the softness of fluffy pollen; the pleats, straight as stalks, of mid-calf skirts, and the word “petal” — a term of endearment in Mr. Kane’s native Scotland. That was used with the word “flower” as a print on sweater tops.

“I was thinking of flowers being not just a pretty face. They produce oxygen and keep us alive,” said the designer backstage. “Sex education at school gave me a diagram of the sexual reproduction of a flower. The anatomy of a woman is so similar to a flower when you dissect it. So the photo synthesis was graphic flowers evolving into this beautiful, sensual shine.”

The most beautiful part of the collection was to see Mr. Kane, just 31, break into full bloom. Everything had changed: the venue no longer the hyper-modern financial district high rise but a shambling brick warehouse. The pert girly style of his former collections had burst into ripe femininity.

Every detail seemed perfectly selected: from shoes, slightly 1930s with their fold-back flaps; or the crocodile clips, closing a shoulder strap or holding up a swathe of skirt.

Out of all this, the clothes — give or take a flare of metallic glitter or the cut-out pieces — had a normality and beauty that made them at once original but wearable.

Kering, formerly PPR, the company that bought a majority stake in the Christopher Kane company last year, announced this week that it will open the designer’s first store on high-end Mount Street in London’s Mayfair district. It will be followed by a slow rollout in fashion capitals like New York, Milan and Paris, according to François-Henri Pinault, Kering’s chief executive, who sat front row at the show.

“But there is no store theme yet. Christopher has to work out his ideas about how he wants the shop to be,” said Mr. Pinault. Judging by the collection, it will be beautiful with a tinge of sexuality and a crystal clear vision.

Flowers were again to the fore at Burberry Prorsum, where the English rose — its petals showering the finale — were in the mind of the designer.

“I really wanted it to feel like a little cuddle. It started off with a mood rather than a theme — a gentle spirit, kinder and warmer, more embracing,” said Christopher Bailey backstage.

“I wanted it very soft and tender and joyous. I loved the idea of all these little English roses,” the designer said. “The colors are very powdery. I used a lot of English laces from Nottingham and Scottish cashmere. It’s a very British collection.”

That was true for the soft cardigans, taking over from jackets in the show and the sweet country-garden colors that went from greenery to strawberry.

Yet — apart from the plastic shoulder cape given to the hot model Cara Delevingne at the finale — there was precious little of the Burberry raincoats that would have been so useful in the sunshine-and-showers September day.

Instead there were coats: tailored, plain, sweetly colored, with a touch of Celine’s minimalism, and a city, rather than a country charm. They were worn over the tops and skirts, often transparent in crunchy lace. Mr. Bailey has a way of creating links to his other collections: the visible lace underpants or a sudden flurry of polka dot pattern. But this show, without a hard edge, had a sweet serenity.

The Erdem collection seemed to have the sweetness of marriage in mind — give or take the clumpy shoes that were presumably designed to ground the intricate laces and light chiffons, all in black and white.

A grand piano and a cello gave a gentle touch to clothes in which the designer Erdem Moralioglu had left behind his colorful prints and body-curving dresses for a softer, wispier look.

As a statement it was courageous, yet looked a little as though it had been led by Dior couture. In terms of handwork, the effect was so superb that it might have been a couture house. Yet something was lost in translation of the designer’s aesthetic to negative and positive. When a tiny glimpse of color tipped the breast with flowery embroidery, it suggested that the designer should soon pick up his coloring paints again.

“Contours” was the name Marios Schwab gave to his collection, thinking, as ever with his design, of the female body. The concept was to produce body-conscious clothes, but not in a sexual or obvious way. Instead, airbrushed lines on dresses outlined the body, as if they were tracing a sculpture through a piece of cloth.

Mr. Schwab referred to Allen Jones, the 1960s painter and sculptor of curvaceous bodies, but the designer’s work was more sexually restrained.

A few dresses with Grecian drapes recalled Mr. Schwab’s origins. And so did the shoes: Greek sandals with a metallic ring round the ankle to ground the simple goddess gowns.

Changing pace is an important element for British designers, few of whom are yet in a settled fashion comfort zone.

Jonathan Saunders, known for his graphic blocks of colors and geometric shapes, reached out to a different universe. His soft and silken sporty outfits seemed like Haight-Ashbury meets Chinatown in San Francisco in the 1970s.

So a cropped jacket would be worn over a floral top and satin shorts; or all kinds of bomber jackets would cropped above the waist and teamed with varied separates.

The quality of the slithery silk fabrics in rainbows of color upgraded these “hippies” to the 21st century. And when an elegant cardigan in sunset shading was worn with a slim skirt, it had a sleek modernity.

A reminder of how the Saunders style used to be came when Samantha Cameron, wife of Britain’s prime minister, sat front row at the Roksanda Ilincic show in a vivid orange Saunders skirt.

Cut to the Ilincic runway, where color blocks on clothing and on the set stood out against the skyline of London’s financial district — all high rises and Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The modernist glass building next door, known as “The Shard,” was a neat introduction to the show’s other story: clusters of crystals as decoration.

Vivid color is a current story in this city, as is fashion geometry. Rhinestone flowers are an echo of Prada that has gone across the fashion universe. For all its dynamism, Ms. Ilincic’s work seemed to follow — gracefully and intelligently — other fashion leaders.