If you’re thinking diamonds and gangster chains now, however, please stop. Olowu’s gem fetish derived from the collaboration he recently embarked on with Madison Avenue jewelers Sidney Garber, in the course of which he became captivated by the luminescence of stones such as onyx, lapis, and jade. He picked up on those colors for the palette of his latest collection, and more broadly applied the idea of “preciousness” to his clothes. Olowu wanted, he explained at an appointment today, to make garments meant to be treasured as fine jewelry.
But that was almost standard practice for Olowu. You’d be hard-pressed to date his looks—in this collection or previous ones—to any particular fashion season; in that way, they are like jewelry. They are meant to be held onto. This outing was a typically Olowu-esque exercise in, let’s call it, “restrained overstatement.” That doesn’t seem like it should be a thing, but how else to describe the designer’s signature mash-up of bold colors, clashing prints, new and vintage materials, and the occasional operatic gesture, to wit this collection’s floor-length mosaic-print cape? Aside from that cape, the silhouettes here tended toward the decorous, with a slight preference for trousers and full skirts over the dresses that are Olowu’s stock-in-trade. The overall effect was brasher than usual, but that didn’t detract from the very adult sensibility of the clothes. Or, to put it in jewelry terms, this was bling of the most artful quality.
The full collection
Photo: Luis Montreio / Courtesy of Duro Olowu
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