Pringle of Scotland has always been known for its wool. But this season, thanks to creative director Clare Waight Keller, it may be just as famous for its wax. One of her new collection's standout fabrics was a habotai silk that she had wax-coated in Scotland. "It makes the silk feel like carbon paper," she said before the presentation, at Carla Sozzani's Corso Como gallery. That didn't necessarily sound like such a good thing, until Waight Keller brought out the pieces in question. A white coat had a glowing translucence, more like tracing paper than carbon paper, and a blue coat had the pigmented intensity of the shade named for Yves Klein. (Waight Keller said it was inspired by Blue, the last film from Derek Jarman, mentor of face-of-Pringle Tilda Swinton.)
That blue coat also had—like Doctor Doolittle's Pushmi-Pullyu—two ends, each with a collar and sleeves. One could be buttoned up inside the other, creating a billowy, doubling effect. Or, unbuttoned, it trailed on the ground behind the wearer like a train, or could be knotted up around the waist. More art object than garment? Maybe. You certainly wouldn't want to be grappling with it in a public bathroom. But it was a visually effective statement of Waight Keller's desire to transform the most traditional everyday clothes. The same kind of alchemy saw gingham shirting cut into strips and knitted into a cardigan, which she showed over (what else?) a gingham shirt. It was even more extreme when cotton shirting was shredded and knitted into cable in the same piece—again, an effect that's hard to convey in words. Waight Keller's transformations were easier to understand when it was a simple case of laying netting made from indigo yarn over Pringle's signature argyle, or garment-dying a pair of leather pants into an almost denimlike blue. A handful of crisp cotton drill pieces, meanwhile, were eminently wearable. And with only 16 looks on display, you were left wanting more.
