October 1, 2016 |
There’s a bit of a shoulder situation going on in Lutz Huelle’s SS17 collection. A bit might actually be an understatement. There’s some shoulder going on and it’s a statement making shoulder. Which makes sense given the press notes, and which if we’d chosen to refer to them pre show, would also have stopped us from making grand statements about the shoulder being the new penicillin or whatever in the manner of somebody who thinks they discovered how to save man kind from the scourage oftapeworm. So, what of this shoulder? To quote, this was an essay in “how to define a shoulder without using pads or padding. A sort of natural sharpness that almost happens by chance?”. Not that anything happen by chance here. This was precision defined. Take the classic trenches and masculine shirting he sent out for example, “I widened the shoulder line of a trench and a shirt to a point where I could then just refold it onto itself, creating a small angular shoulder and adding volume at the same time.” In other instances he simply left the shoulder to speak for itself, leaving it bare in tops that were slashed diagonally across the neck or minimal sleeveless dresses. As always, this was a celebration of the jacket, which this season not only made an appearance in his signature perfecto with a twist, the twist in this case being the pouffy, party dress short sleeve, but also wrapped, or should that be belted around the body almost kimono style. Eye popping colour, primary green and blue with hot pink and orange, set against dark navy and black, and mixed with a hint of camouflage emphasised the graphicness of the silhouette and designs.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
