Designers turn back clocks for future fashion

JONATHAN Saunders brought Bauhaus to life in his third-ever showing at London Fashion Week, while veteran designer Paul Smith opted for sober lines brightened by a riot of flowers.

Designers tend to gaze backward in time for inspiration, but the shows on day two of Britain’s biggest fashion event had viewers cross-eyed with visions from multiple pasts.

Saunders’ use of stark geometric patterns, in skin-tight tops and pencil skirts, on ballerina-necked blouses and transparent knee-length dresses, worked to perfection.

Gigantic lengths of Swarovski crystal beads, made especially for his collection, crossed the chest and back of dresses in a swinging ‘X’, in a clever revision of the simple bead strand.

Another excellent combination from Saunders, still a relative beginner after his fashion week debut a year ago, was the bathing suits and matching cover-ups, marked by colourful geometric patterns and swooping transparency.

Overall, the show managed to convey the primacy of design, and to give his models strength without losing their femininity.

Turkish designer Bora Aksu, who grabbed headlines with his first London collection a year ago, sourced his styles in hippie bohemianism a half-century ahead of Saunders’ 1920s model.

He followed the season’s trend of chiffon and transparent layers on flowing dresses, but added his signature knitwear to many tops and slung a massive, Wonder Woman belt with central medallion around the model’s middle.

Billowing sleeves topped V-necked dresses and pantsuits, and monochrome ruled the day, from a challenging pistachio to a more modest blush.

Paul Smith meanwhile remained true to his own history of classic tailoring, crisp lines and bright floral and striped patterns.

“I’m known for doing my own thing, without all the razzmatazz of parties and kissing,” he told Vogue earlier this month.

The British designer, who shows his men’s line in Paris, instead brought the freshness of spring to the Royal Horticultural Halls by landscaping his catwalk with grass and making it bloom with a frenzy of floral patterns.

Small blue flowers, big fuchsia ones, and a range of plant patterns were mixed and matched, either as layers or on dresses cinched around the waist by wide cloth belts, and sometimes paired with metal-lame tweed jackets or cable-knit sweaters. Stripes of all sizes, too, went up, down and across models, and suits were perky, with slim cigarette pants and short, tight jackets with three-quarter sleeves.