June 15, 2016 |
Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone, I hear you call my name and it feels like home. Like London Collections: Men. Feels like home, I mean. Like A Prayer may or may not currently be on the radio as we write this. Let’s pretend it’s not and just call this whole thing divine inspiration. Anyway, LCM was really quite good, wasn’t it? So good, in fact, that we can’t quite let go, even though it finished on Monday, and instead are clinging to it like a particularly famished leech. Here we present to you, in all it’s glory, our LCM SS17 round-up.
We begun our LCM immersion at Topman Design on Friday. “Costa del Sol, babe,” says Natalie. But she’d be wrong. Can she not read a sweatshirt? Does it not clearly say Margate? Obviously Geography was not her strong subject at school. Nor reading. No, this was a trip to the English riviera, or to translate, a night out in Blackpool, when it was still encased in that glorious seventies glow. Or, as one rather nice towelling top said on the back, a dirty weekend. Because what better way to clean up dirt than with some towelling? And is that an acid peel? Are you joking? No, that’s good old British sunburn. Doesn’t it just look fab with those pastels? We’ve been considering a lengthy sunbed stint ever since.
Craig Green was shipwrecked. As in a ship that’s been wrecked, rather than the 1990s TV show of the same name featuring several beautiful people stranded on a beach. What Craig Green’s collection did have in common with Shipwrecked though, is, like those nubile contestants, beauty. Many many beautiful clothes paraded past us. Think of it as Frankenstein’s monster made beautiful, stitched together, a giant patchwork quilt to cocoon your body. And the surprise star, looking back over the catwalk pictures? The leg. Natalie’s calling it an “Angelina Jolie leg”. Work on those squats now.
“Rory,” said Phoebe, talking of Rory Parnell-Mooney, menswear designer of Fashion East fame, looked “good from behind. And so did his clothes.” Which, coincidentally was the slogan found upon said clothes, albeit in German, Schon von Hinten, which, so he told us, is gay Berlin slang for the very same thing – good from behind. Anyway, the clothes. They were hot. So hot in fact, that we walked out to stand in the rain, just to cool off. Baggy teenage hoodies in red, left open at the back and criss-crossed with tie fastenings, trousers that gathered at the floor, a rather nice shiny PVC coat. Sweaty. In a good way. 
Remember Calvin and Hobbes? No, me neither. But Natalie does. But then, she is an old cow so what do you expect from her but an outdated reference, with a name that doesn’t end in a ‘Z’? And she assures me that J Dubz’ (J.W.Anderson to you) collection looks like if Calvin (a small cartoon child) and Hobbes (a striped cartoon tiger) were to somehow procreate, maybe in a test tube, that tube baby would look like this. After all, is there not colour blocking here? And what is colour blocking if not two very wide stripes? Obviously this all makes total sense. But lets be a little more serious for a second. This felt like dressed up. As in playing dress up. Remember the surprise and wonderment when you came back into the room transformed into a different creature? Think of this as an attempt to recapture that moment of childlike awe.
Sunday best. Choir boy. 17th century poet. An educated man of letters in a sombre uniform that reflects the seriousness of his work. These are some of the musings we have on Wales Bonner’s poetic, serene collection. We would say more, but in truth, we have been much distracted by picking out items from the collection that we want to buy. For me? That tie-neck white shirt. Natalie likes the trousers. She’s also muttering something about pearls. And for Dominic, who is looking over our shoulder? Dominic wants a full look. Black sun-shielding hat, striped polo and those hooped earrings.
Time starts to pass, before you know it, you’re mincing down the high street dressed in Christopher Shannon, posing outside Sports Direct in Lovers Direct. 100% unoriginal ideas guaranteed. Not that the pose location is unoriginal in anyway. It’s fucking inspired. Haters Direct. That was just the slogan on the sweatshirt. As was the haters thing. They’re best worn with a tracksuit bottom, preferably a denim one. You don’t want to be accused of flashing when posing do you?
“Jurassic jungle,” Phoebe says of Coach. “There was storm music too. But no one was eaten off the toilet. And I should know because I went to the toilet.” There was also no Jeff Goldblum here either. At least not in the clothes. Maybe a little in the hair. In fact, apart from the T-Rexs on the seats there was very little Jurrassic anything here, unless you count the lounge lizard as a dinosaur, because he was here. Imagine Nicholas Cage in Wild at Heart. But instead of mid-thigh lizard he’s in motorcycle leather.
Remains of the mouth is what we will call this, this being Liam Hodges’ Spring Summer 17 collection. How better to immortalise your missing front teeth than with an X-ray of your mouth on sweatshirts and the back of jackets? According to the slogan, he’s ok. According to us, his collection was more than ok. Patched together jersey and heavy duty cotton to create a tough, hardworking collection of clothes that you would actually like to wear. Which is nice for a change.
Christopher Kane was convicts on acid, according to Natalie. As Jefferson Airplane once sang, one pill makes you larger, one pill makes you smaller, and the third pill makes you hand over the credit card to the cashier in Christopher’s shop. After all, there are some things money can’t buy, but for everything else there’s Mastercard, so why not use it to buy a sweater with a heat imaged giant fucking pansy on it? And a shoot practice target print trouser to go with? What else are you gonna do with your money? Save it? Don’t be pathetic.
Written in fabulous collaboration by Natalie Dembinska, Fashion Features Editor and Jack Moss, Online Editor
Photographs from top, taken by Jason Lloyd-Evans, Topman, Craig Green, Rory Parnell-Mooney, Christopher Shannon, J.W.Anderson, Coach.
