To claim that a 26-year-old designer has gone back to his roots would sound like describing a dress as vintage because you bought it last year. So perhaps it would be better to say that, in his latest collection, Henry Holland—the affable designer behind the winkingly named House of Holland—returned to the garment that made his name back in ye olden time of, um, 2006: the slogan T-shirt.
But life moves pretty fast in the world of the twentysomething, so whereas back then Holland made couplets out of fellow designers' names ("Do me daily, Christopher Bailey" being a particularly memorable one), this time the T-shirts featured acronyms that were incomprehensible to anyone over 27. Of course, they make perfect sense to the OMG LOL kids, and few designers are more a part of that generation than Holland. Even his front row reflected this, clogged as it was with the paparazzi-friendly likes of Alexa Chung and Pixie Geldof. Why are these people famous? Ask a teenager. Nonetheless, they nearly caused a fight among the overexcited paps.
Whether Holland is a mere youthful flash in the Zeitgeist remains to be seen. This collection was definitely fun, but then, so is Topshop.
Taking downtown New York as inspiration (possibly influenced by the designer's best friend Agyness Deyn, who now lives there), the clothes were sporty and sparky. A bandanna-style print was repeated throughout, and the wedge shoes by Charlotte Olympia sat atop platforms with stripes so thick and bright they looked like Neapolitan ice cream. As is always the way with Holland, details stood out more than the whole, such as the cute gray knee-high socks topped with gold-chain prints, or the stiffened bandannas that affixed the high side ponytails. Nonetheless, la fille Geldof was entranced throughout, taking photos of each outfit on her iPhone—and in this crowd, there is surely no clearer sign of success than that.
