Henry Holland and Agyness Deyn are the mascots of young London fashion, the self-made It boy and girl who, in the space of six months, invented themselves as a famously cheeky designer and the chirpiest cover girl in the business. Holland's still up to his fun and games. This season, he mythologized their friendship in a fake coat of arms (in which the figure of Aggy is emblazoned on a shield), persuaded her into a pair of plaid antlers, and had the model and her friends romp out in a Highland collection featuring a mauve-and-yellow fake House of Holland tartan, specially woven in Scotland.
For all his boisterousness, Holland, a former writer for the teen mag Bliss, is pushing himself to prove his capabilities as a designer—or more accurately, since he never went to fashion school, as an orchestrator who gets other people to help him make things he likes for a show. There were mini-kilts in tartan and pink or black mohair knit; skinny tartan trews with kilt buckles displaced to the ankle; and, in a clever morphing of two British classics, a trench-kilt hybrid that looked not just amusing but viably sellable.
The tartan/street theme raised a laugh and a bit of Brit nostalgia from anyone old enough to remember Vivienne Westwood's Highland-fling phase and its well-worn associations with teddy boys and punks. The fashion content stretched to a couple of iterations of London's latest pash for long dresses—a mid-calf T-shirt and a sweater dress—and accessories including jaunty oversize tam-o'-shanters and a funny extra-large sporran, made for Holland by the multitalented Katie Hillier.
