Giles Deacon's latest show suggested he was well ahead of the forties/seventies curve that is turning everyone else's crank this season. He was already fifties/eighties. "No, no," he corrected backstage, "It's nineties—the color and fun and playfulness of the Milk Bar." He was referring to the unprepossessing London nightlife institution where you would once have seen Björk hopping about, Katie Grand propped up at the bar knitting, and Jon Pleased Wimmin deejaying (and what happened to him?).
Giles' shtick is more overtly self-referential than most. His latest invitation duplicated his trademark eyewear. He had personal icon Veruschka close his show. And the Milk Bar big-up was his latest dip into styles he has known and loved. On the runway, it translated as an intense farrago of psycho color, Pac-Man pattern, and extreme silhouette. The highest compliment you could pay the whole thing was that it was all in exquisitely bad taste.
The designer already proved his passion for Christina Hendricks with his Resort collection. With this outing, you have to imagine her singular shape overlaid with emblems of rave and sprayed with glitter or swagged with pearls. Shazam! Sid Bryan's knits were as luridly irresistible as his work for his own label Sibling. A hibiscus print said summer in a twisted way (Giles picked up that idea on a visit to Kew Gardens with his mum). And the lady looks that are de rigueur for Spring 2011 were here unhinged by a print that looked like naughty capsules. That normal/nuts dichotomy is a Giles signature, but he's never scrawled it quite as successfully as he did today.
