In his last collection for Pringle, designer Stuart Stockdale moved away from the vein of be-kilted Highland tribalism he's been mining and toward a more refined mood, working a '70s-influenced, geometric look (shades of Burberry and Christopher Bailey).
Stockdale's geometric prints were shown in sweater-over-shirt combos or in vests over double-pleated trousers (suggesting an outfit a mother might buy for her boy before he left for boarding school). The collection notes announced "Henley Royal Regatta meets Hitchcock," a description that accounted both for boating blazers and cabled cashmere cricket jumpers, and for a dramatic intarsia knit of a flock of black birds on a white background. Less successful was a Cubist city-skyline pattern, redolent of the not good bit of the '70s. However, Stockdale's signature item—a hooded single-breasted jacket—still looked effective, this time round in a pink-and-pale-blue Tartan specially woven in a lightweight cotton-and-wool blend.
