London - RTW SS13 - Christopher Kane

City: London
Season: Ready-To-Wear, Spring/Summer 2013
Show: Christopher Kane

Scottish design wunderkind Christopher Kane has been a favourite of mine since the beginning, and he is probably my favourite designer working out of London at this moment in time. When the young Scot isn’t too busy dressing such diverse figures as Samantha Cameron and Alexa Chung you can bet he will be turning out totally stellar ready-to-wear collections and Spring/Summer 2013 is certainly that. Having followed his work closely for the past few years I have come to realise that Christopher Kane loves a contradiction, a paradox. Think high-low, sexy-geeky, sheer-opaque, etc. Spring/Summer 2013 is yet another study in dressing on the razor’s edge, with the key juxtaposition being that of hard and soft. Observe Janice Alida’s potentially butch leather biker (top left), softened by pure creamy white, as well as Marie Piovesan’s blossom print dress (bottom left), a design saved from tweeness by some cleverly placed cutouts. The hard-soft dichotomy reaches its peak with Kel Markey’s semi-sheer dress (bottom right), with what appear to be strips of duct tape toughening up some intricate embellishment. Yet in amongst all of these delectable candy colours and bewitching textures my absolute favourite look was the rather incongruous Frankenstein’s monster print tee sported by the equally beguiling Karlina Caune (centre). I always adore a new ready-to-wear outing from Christopher Kane, but I’m going to need an extra thumb to explain just how much I love his latest.

P.S. How incroyable is that floral-embossed leather jacket on Tian Yi (top right)? Never has the humble biker jacket looked so utterly enchanting…

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in September 2012.