Gareth Pugh created a tremor of excitement amongst the slightly jaded fashion-month caravan with his Aw13/14 showing. The British Boy-Wonder who has been showing in Paris since 2009 had historically been somewhat in the shadow of Paris's other major London expat, Alexander McQueen. Despite similarities in their aesthetics and their common wont of conceptualising their work Pugh's work was usually distinguishable by a couple of factors. The first, a far tighter budget than the more established McQueen, was often evident in the scale of the offering as well as fabric choice, although fans of Pugh's early trash bag styles might argue this was fashion Nirvana. The second factor was a slightly inferior technical pattern cutting hand and the third, and most significant point of difference, was Pugh's modernist leanings which aligned his work more to the Rick Owens school of design.
Fast forward a couple of years and it's a different time. The loss of Alexander McQueen was a massive blow to the fashion world although in Sarah Burton's exceptionally capable hands his legacy will not be squandered or let go to fallow. After years of excess in fashion (as well as in our lives) the board was wiped clean when Phoebe Philo triumphantly ushered in the reign of clean modernism with her first collection for Celine. And the door is open for Gareth Pugh to take the spot light and with an evident maturity and the confidence of experience he's more than willing. The big ideas are still there, as are the overscaled pieces but now it's tempered by a thoughtfulness and sensitivity that resulted in a beautiful collection that combined the best facets of Pugh's design repertoire: Dramatic coats and dresses, leather, armour inspired shapes, raven blacks and an eerie twig print, all tempered by Pugh's streak of contemporaneous sharpness, meaning that full skirts came balanced with oversized funnel collars or hand draped angular lapels and a victorian leaning high necked dress had a shoulder and hem of Pugh's beloved trash bags as fringing. It was just right for right now and I for one am already excited for next season.
Speaking of stepping up to the plate I can't not mention Alexander Wang's first outing in the hot seat at Balenciaga. Many an perfectly manicured eyebrow was raised at the thought of this kiddo who is famous for his perfectly lightweight t-shirts taking over from creative and technical genius Nicolas Ghesquiére but the tentative common consensus is that he has managed to pull it off.
It was a considered effort and it was clear that Wang understood that this needed to be about the House that he was guest in rather than himself, he has clearly spent time in the archives. The scales and curved proportions as well as the weight and stiff structure of the pieces all said Balenciaga, and were reflective of the stature and history of the House. It was a more minimalistic vision of the brand than we had historically received from Ghesqueiére which is where Wang's signature was legible. A good start, lets see where it goes.
