September 21st 2010
Boxed In
So I’ve never been asked to bring photo I.D. to a show before (to be fair, any photo I.D. that I have wouldn’t help me anyway seeing as they were taken an age ago…) and for Acne’s first official on-schedule show at London Fashion Week I was thinking it was going to be a blown up affair – “Everyone loves us and we will shoooooow you all why!”. In one way it was as there was the livestream available for all to see (as with most shows this season…) but then I arrived at Kensington Palace in Apartment 1A to be precise where Princess Margaret once lived to find a teensy tiny show for 90 people only. Weirdly it was both intimate and a free-for-all. As it was, Kensington Palace was a surreal enough location but add the, gold box seating as well as ushers/waiters adorned with ticker tape machine bow ties and hats that had translated Swedish poetry on it and to be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect…
Oh, and this character here aka performance artist Pandemonia who I initially thought was an eager gatecrasher was also present just to add that touch of randomness to the air… as well as a sweet sweet smell of latex and rubber in abundance…
As it turned out, it was all a bit of a ruse – the poetry could have meant nothing and the location perhaps bore no influence on the collection itself because in the end the clothes were decidedly non-referential and if anything, continued the Acne mission to make gals (and boys… ) want to own every piece of their clothing. Where in the past few seasons, there were deliberate attempts to have influences, references and create a ‘world’ around the collection, it seemed to me that with this collection was a clean slate that re-affirmed what Acne’s message was – “We are Swedish, We make Cool Clothes.” I suppose it touches on that thing I spoke of about Scandi-cool… an intangible, indescribable aesthetic that lends itself well to clothes you want to wear straight away without any need for umming or ahhing about any potential wearability issues. I suppose when the end result is that of instant wanting/wearing, why does Acne need to tie themselves up with that old hacky fash journo question; “What was your inspiration?”
Still, within the reference-less clean slate, Jonny Johansson still worked in a personal collaboration with a tattoo artist that can be seen in the subtly embossed/printed patterns…
Furthermore, within this cleaner territory, textures are even more important especially in monochromatic ensembles which saw looks in head to toe navy, black, red, white/cream and taupe… such as this patent skirt that supports my love for the shiny shiny material in odd colours like mushroom…
There are more pieces in the lookbook that weren’t used in the show… like this beautiful suede coat/dress that splits up at the sides…
Tomato juice red never looked so appearling until I saw it paired with tie-up Japanese okobo-style sandals…
I’m also loving an elongated shirt with cropped jumpers – I’m sure this was a styling trick that I tried to attempt from watching an episode of Sister Sister or Blossom…except the results were of course not as streamlined as this…
Pearls adorning a leather jacket and a dress as well as python used as a print and an actual texture again add little touches that perhaps don’t really ‘mean’ anything significant in the explanation of the collection but add interest and pure aesthetic to the pieces…
I tried to get close-ups of the shoes but as I said in the previous post, Vogue.com do a far better job!
Weirdly enough once you start flipping through the lookbook more you get more of a juxtaposition going on as illustrated here with a neat little purse and a PVC rounded-cup corset with high waisted cycling shorts.
A bit of limey green also slotted its way into the S/S 11 lookbook that is definitely less regimental than the show but I guess once it’s all in the stores, separated and merchandised, it is that same old Acne chestnut – “I’ll take that, that and that… with my imaginary Monopoly money…”…
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