It's all go in London. Pixie Geldof, hotfoot from Glastonbury, had just rushed round to Giles Deacon's studio in Brick Lane to model his Resort collection in an orange doll wig. Katie Grand, Deacon's friend, stylist, and the editor of Love (etc., etc.), was dressing her while simultaneously counting the days until her wedding to Steve Mackey in upstate New York (she's wearing a made-to-measure Azzedine Alaïa dress). And Deacon was buzzing on the news that he's a) got a new Italian licensee, and b) won the French ANDAM award, which means not only oodles of euros, but also that he'll be showing in Paris in the fall.
On the rail—and on Pixie—it was all polish and pragmatic pieces, the kind of range Deacon says he's only now able to achieve with Castor S.r.l. "There are 30 pieces, with a couple of repetitions, so 60 in all. We're being asked for daywear much more, funnily enough," he said, "And for the first time we've been able to do things like work out what our great trouser is going to be. Hardly anyone does them these days because it's really hard to make trousers. But now we can." The Giles pant—high-waisted, cuffed, and with a slight flare—hits a neat summery equilibrium between casual and formal.
The line also has plenty of Deacon's signature sheath dresses, the best being the "Razor" in pink and silver lamé decorated with lines of anatomically provocative curvilinear overstitching. His proper-looking, ladylike tailoring, made slightly sporty with "super-locked" edging, comes in a silk and nylon mix to give structure without weight. It's all very grown up, though Deacon swears his inspirations still come from some funny homegrown sources. Part of the collection, he said, "came from a John Lewis pillowcase." The result: a drape-y georgette square-cut, slightly asymmetric T-shirt dress that comes in sophisticated taupe or smothered in a squiggly pop print that instantly had Geldof jumping about as if she were still at Glasto.
