Teacher’s Petal: Christopher Kane Spring 2014
With investment from Kering (formerly PPR) earlier this year, has Christopher Kane been toned down? That was the question on everyone’s lips as the designer presented a collection that was several collections rolled into one and by far the most commercial to date. Salable sweatshirts and knitwear were unmissable and bound to appear on the backs of all those street-style stars next season.
But in Kane’s defense, his distinctive edge was still present, if you looked. The concept itself was far from subtle: scientific, horticultural drawings of flowers. The Scottish designer took inspiration from a recent trip to his high school and used a biology textbook as the starting point. One of the key motifs was a diagram, arrows and all, of a dissected and rather erotic flower. There was also a range of dresses, from a bonded-fiber iridescent cocktail number in magically pearlescent colors to a mocha draped silk edition inspired by Jean-Léon Gérôme’s paintings of girls being sold in an ancient Roman marketplace.
A testament to the Kane’s ascent into stardom was the fact that Guido Palau flew in to do the hair for the show. What a shame, though, that a designer who is so vital to the DNA of London’s fashion scene had only one darker-skinned girl out of 54 looks.