Before I go on, just a small tip to keep in mind, more me than you actually, when attending a presentation and the designer of said collection which you are viewing waves at you smiling, maybe don’t accidentally blank him. It’s a rare occurrence, but there is a small chance that they might actually be waving at you. Which is what happened today at Christopher Kane’s SS17 presentation. But less on that for now, onto the clothes. This is clothing for convicts. Well inspired by prison wear. Think convict on acid. A jail bird Ken Kesey thrown in the slammer with his posse of Merry Pranksters. To quote, Christopher from his press release, “in many ways the collection is a reflection of what I grew up with; that clean, pristine, washed and ironed sportswear way of dressing- the casual kids in Glasgow- mixed with that world of TV: Crimewatch and Casual”. Apparently he was looking at cop shows and police identification techniques, so our mention of convicts could be wrong, but we’re going with it anyway, because after all don’t police arrest convicts? So really we’re not that far off. And the shapes here are rather prison standard issue. Think boxy and loose fitting. The police identification technique slant comes into play in the form of prints inspired by firing range targets and thermal imaging, that thing they do during surveillance at night so they can see. Except that here it’s used to subvert florals, well pansies to be specific taking that humble flower and turning it into a psychedelic explosion. Hence the acid trip reference. Never let it be said that there isn’t a hole we, or should be I, can’t dig myself out of.
