I only saw a handful of key designers on LC: M Day 2. Where Day 1 might have offered some slightly more ostentatious designs, Day 2 was for the most part about wearability. While that might be a little less exciting it’s more likely these will be the clothes we see on the street next Summer. The only designer this doesn’t really apply to is KTZ, the first great show of the day. Kokon To Zai is one of the best shops in London, if you know me and you come to visit me, you can bet your life that I’ll take you to Kokon To Zai when we go shopping. Once, my sister was visiting from Ireland – the sales were on. True to form I took her to Kokon To Zai where she threw money around with reckless abandon buying Marjan Pejoski jackets and other labels. Later that day we walked past a branch of Next. People were queuing outside, desperate to get their hands on cheap Next clothes in the sale. Incredulous my sister turned to me and asked “Why are people queuing to get into Next when there’s a shop like Kokon To Zai here?” Why indeed. It was a pretty divergent collection with different looks demarcated by colour palettes, but unified by that trademark ‘grown up club kid’ aesthetic KTZ is famous for. Here are my favourite looks.
Next up was YMC. I think in terms of all the designers who show at LC:M I probably wear more YMC than anyone else. I’m obsessed with their sweatshirts and basic t-shirts which form the guts of my day-to-day wardrobe. They’re pleasantly British in aesthetic and nowadays there are several brands I won’t name who appear to have carved out entire careers from ripping them off. My favourite pieces were the hybrid beret/ flat cap that they also showed last season and the cape. OMG the cape.
Katie Eary is a girl who loves a print, she’s not scared of colour either. This season she moved away from the sea creatures of last season and the birds of prey from seasons before and adopted the humble flamingo – spokesbird for white trash. Who wants subtlety when you can wear Katie Eary? The skateboard as accessory, whilst deeply impractical, looks awesome. I can actually skate but if I owned an Eary deck there is no way I’d want to actually use it. I’d rather just put it on a shelf and admire it from a safe distance where I can’t damage it. The custom Nike ID’s have also become a trademark of Eary’s and this season they’re particularly good. God knows I love a pink shoe.
Finally we had Oliver Spencer. This is a strange one for me because I always love the clothes on the runway but never get round to buying them in real life. I put this down to styling – as complete looks I love Oliver Spencer, but broken down into singular items I struggle to imagine how they’d fit into my wardrobe. The simple answer is of course to buy loads of it at the same time, but it seems that Oliver Spencer represents a lifestyle rather than just an aesthetic, and maybe that’s what appeals. It’s smart without being stuffy and casual without verging on underdressed. The bleached jeans, reminiscent of Helmut Lang in his glory days, were my favourite item from this collection – and one that I could definitely fit into my current wardrobe.
