Hamish Morrow returned to the London runway this season after a break to rethink his business strategy. He's always been a modernist with a theoretical bent and an intense interest in how science and technology intersect with clothing design, and he explored these same concerns for spring.
For starters, he named his show "Seam Allowance," a technical reference to the fabric left over when garments are sewn together. If that flew over the heads of most in his audience, call us frivolous—what really matters to a woman is how things end up looking. In practice, his exercise in asymmetry produced exaggerated flaps and panels of fabric free-floating over the surfaces of fluid satin or chunkier washed gabardine.
Morrow also likes a bit of glitz, and in a nod to London's current Versace trend he added in the odd cardigan and skirt in sparkling crystal mesh, as well as pieces in bronze chain mail. But one of the main points of his techno-futurism—the water-repellent qualities of his charmeuse—remained invisible. The delicate fabric is treated with a form of nanotechnology that enables it to survive a downpour without a mark. However turned on Morrow is by that advance, it's a boy thing—like a fascination with what's under the hood of a car. Whether something looks slick and sexy are more pressing concerns for most women, and when Morrow cut a neat, puff-sleeved jacket or a killer pair of pants close to the body, his ideas gained traction.
