Duro Olowu has a funny tale about how inspiration hit him for Fall: "I was walking around the gardens of Hidcote Manor, listening to dub on my iPod." Hidcote, for anyone who may not have a guide to British National Trust houses to hand, is an Arts & Crafts stately home in the Cotswolds with a gardenful of topiary, gazebos, and English flora. The dub part? Well, maybe it's traceable in this collection's slightly surreal color palette and take on English-lady eccentricity.
In any case, no matter: The substantive shift here is in the tailored, geometrically patterned knitwear Olowu has added to his familiar repertoire of softly patchworked dresses. There's something of the seventies about it: A-line skirts; reversible shifts; supple, unlined, neatly fitted cardigan jackets; plus capes and slouchy coats. Elsewhere, the designer turned his attention to coating fabric, even to swing skirts made of heavy, lined camel melton wool. It will take a brave, tiny-hipped girl to carry those off with aplomb, but the rest of the collection is a typical Olowu potpourri of items that his collector-followers will happily adopt.
