Something skewiff about this. The way it was cut. Jeans where the waistband crept up the stomach on one side, or knitwear where one sleeve dragged along the floor. Or the denim, where the seams were cut on the curve, making this – can we call it bulbous? – silhouette along the leg. Which, not that I’m making it sound as much, looked great. It gave the collection this louche, relaxed, almost summery feel – shirts that sloped off the boy’s shoulders, raw-cut tucked in t-shirts and the fabrics – light cotton, washed out denim, a daisy print – spoke of a renewed lightness.
But Alex Mullins is at his best when he’s working with print – here, through these silk headscarves that covered the models faces entirely, or large swathes of fabric printed with jeans and t-shirt that sat and billowed as the models walked the runway. It ended with – well, how do we describe this? Bear with us – you know in The Simpsons where Marge gets a t-shirt made with her face on it, and it kind of comes out like this stretched splodge? Think that – but here with these warped human forms that hung flag-like in the boys bodies – Mullins describing it as a play on perfume ads of the 1990s. Alex is a quiet talent – but this strong collection found him right back where he should be.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
