During his break from the London runway, Jens Laugesen wasn't idle: He went off to Paris and won himself the €55,000 ANDAM fellowship, sponsored by LVMH. Now he's back with a collection that showed how he's moved on from where he left off. He's still recognizably the designer who was obsessed by strict, black Helmut Lang-ish urbanism, but now things are calibrated a few more degrees toward the feminine and flouncy.
Caped coats and short flared skirts—of the ilk of the minicrini/skating skirt/dirndl seen elsewhere in London—proved Laugesen is fully locked onto the trend radar. His silhouettes, either a long, lean streak in leggings or that nip-waisted full skirt, had high necklines with stock ties, and zones of techno-sparkle worked into them (the leather jodhpurs, we won't discuss).
For evening, he pursued his favorite black even more relentlessly. There were some good tuxedo looks and a fine white cotton pie-frill-necked shirt, but then it all went on a good ten minutes too long. Surprisingly for a career minimalist, Laugesen hasn't learned the art of brevity. The odd but true fact is that audiences can sometimes like a collection more, the less they see of it.
