J.W. Anderson is on a roll. This outing found the designer amplifying the ideas of his breakthrough Fall collection, but he was hardly resting on his laurels. Though the banding on his tops and tunics looked familiar, Anderson put it to use in the sculpture of fresh proportions and new shapes. He also pushed the formal possibilities of those bands, stretching and draping them, and introducing really clever—and commercial—sweaters that were knit with a kind of Möbius-strip construction. The tubular knit of those pieces was punctiliously done, almost invisibly smocked on either side. That finesse was all the proof required to show that the un-finishing of various other pieces was likewise highly considered, though you'd have been hard-pressed to think so on first look. To wit, a knife-pleated skirt, seamed on the top, or the naïve-looking threads punctuating a puckered plastic top.
Meanwhile, those standout knit pieces reverberated with another of this collection's key themes, their Möbius effect echoing the motif of suspension. Anderson had played with the idea of suspension last season, but again, he explored it in new ways here. That Jonathan Anderson keeps pushing himself is hardly surprising; what's really remarkable is that he continues to do so without sacrificing the fundamental relate-ability of his clothes. This was an adventurous collection, but it was comprised of clothing meant to be worn.
