Last spring, Roksanda Ilincic took a sporty approach to classically elegant clothes. Today, she did the mirror reverse: an elegant eye cast upon sporty clothes. As a description, "sporty" might even skew a bit formal. After the show, Ilincic described her source material as "weekend or leisure wear, the kind of thing you put on when you're cozy at home."
The humble and often maligned sweatshirt and sweatpants had a moment to bask in their cozy glory. The former came in charcoal jersey pieced with navy silk and often a luscious fox hood. In one look, she turned it into a blouson and paired it with a matching New Look-ish jersey skirt, and in another, it was a hoodie tucked into a skirt with a blue-gray astrakhan panel in front and a dyed-to-match fox hem. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Juicy. Elsewhere, she shot navy melton through with gold thread and cut it into a jacket with puffer sleeves. And in keeping with the puffer panoply on the rest of London's runways, Ilincic did one with gracefully rounded shoulders in a silk ink slash print. There were few of her signature dresses on display—and little in the way of serious evening—though she assured that the sales collection back at the showroom is massive.
Luxed-up comfort is undeniably a crowd-pleaser. Who doesn't love being able to wear your slouchy Sunday afternoon digs to Friday night dinner? But these ideas were easily best when administered with a light hand—a crepe dress with raglan wool sleeves or a blouson bomber paneled with a bit of astrakhan. Often, the concept—and an excessive amount of fur—threatened to overpower Ilincic's inherent sense of elegance. For exhibit A of said elegance, see the exceedingly simple white wool dress that closed the show, a winner any day of the week.
