Emerald, violet, pink, aqua, pea green, yellow—the multihued slick of color that opened Josh Goot's show started life as watercolor paints sloshed onto a flat-bed scanner. "Then we manipulated the images on the computer so they twisted and contorted like water," the designer explained. That high-tech, semi-scientific visual filtration of natural phenomena is a fascination Goot has (coincidentally) shared with Louise Goldin and Peter Pilotto this week. In Goot's case, the liquid prints undulated vividly down the length of sporty stretch-georgette tank dresses and set the color codes for all the single-hued pieces that followed.
The effect had a refreshing energy about it: pragmatic modernism dealt out in color-blocked jersey layerings of tees, sinuous skirts, and capes, or dresses with a graphic simplicity (the best of those came later: a half-black, half-nude toga elegantly cut from two squares). The show would have benefited from some condensing, but still, it left a bright and optimistic impression on the London audience. Goot is a young Australian who has chosen to show in Britain for the first time, but his sensibility, particularly this season, fits right into the local scene.
