Digital Prints Take Yet Another Turn

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/fashion/Digital-Prints-Take-Another-Turn-in-London.html

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LONDON — No designers have embraced the digital age more fervently than the British. But there are signs that some are backing off from the digital prints that have been a motif for the last few seasons.

Not so at Mary Katrantzou, who seemed engulfed by her own brilliance with computerized patterns. The theme was shoes, a suitably fetishistic subject for any fashionista. But this footwear — starting with hefty men’s brogues — undulated across the body as photo prints of sneakers, laces and all, were printed on big jackets. Shiny toes on the breast of bustier dresses and shoe laces from hip to thigh? Really?

The second half of the show, when the designer turned for inspiration to that most fluffy of females, Marie Antoinette, was much easier to understand: full-skirted, decorative dresses more familiar in Ms. Katrantzou’s work, with the patterns of royal court slippers.

Ms. Katrantzou has been wonderfully inventive as a digital print leader, but maybe for one season, she should turn her computer off.

That is just what Matthew Williamson seemed to have done in his collection, where his digital print elements were entirely replaced by artistic prints inspired by nature. They included a recurring dragonfly theme and botanical references that gave a sweet serenity to summer clothes.

But then WOW! The colors were vivid, starting with a palette of orange and pink, phasing into yellow and clotted cream, then moving to sky blue. But any time the color faded, decoration took over, with appliqués and embroideries of flowers, making this collection as sophisticated as it was well thought out.

Shoes seem to be all the rage as a theme. The Vivienne Westwood Red Label collection opened with the model Lily Cole doing a dance of death in a flurry of red dust on the runway. She was interpreting Hans Christian Andersen’s story of “The Red Shoes,” which was linked in Ms. Westwood’s mind with the wearing out of planet earth and global warming.

The designer is adamant about supporting the cause. But her cri de coeur about climate change came with some stylish draped dresses, twisted jackets on streamlined pantsuits and clothes that were both wearable and pretty.