Thakoon Panichgul, whose first outing was a ten-piece presentation in Chelsea, showed his latest collection at Exit Art, and there were moments when he seemed to get lost in the larger venue. Fall found the designer back down to earth after spring's ethereal show, feeling, as he put it, "moody." This meant a collection made of many themes, perhaps too many. Panichgul was passionate about cape collars, and he was also much attached to the corset. Some of these he built into dresses which, when paired with Manolo Blahnik's French-maid-style shoes, looked almost naughty.
Preshow, Panichgul had hinted that the show would include "things that aren't what they seem," which translated into a black dress with clever hand-painted stitches at the neckline, dresses that looked like separates, and the trompe l'oeil paint prints used for the closing pieces. The most-successful looks were those that captured a sense of Parisian chic. A striped dress and top (worn with skinny pants) had a jaunty Gallic feel, and a camel pea coat, accompanied only by leggings, nodded to Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. Thakoon is clearly trying to grow as a designer, and his next challenge will be finding a way to keep his earlier focus and clarity of vision as his collections gain in size.
