Christopher Kane has found himself a very workable formula for his men's collections. He launches them in complementary tandem with his women's pre-collections, the message of one compounding the impact of the other. Here, for instance, there was a rather gorgeous extemporization of the peek-a-boo detail in the women's Pre-Fall collection. The way in which the fabric was folded back, autopsy-like, in the womenswear was echoed for menswear in a pattern of 3-D cubes that was straight out of an eye-teasing Escher drawing. It began as a mathematically precise pattern on a sweatshirt or blouson, then gradually broke apart, first as a jacquard in a suit, then as a shattered graphic on an oversize tee. (Pair that with track pants, and you had an outfit that serviced Kane's hip-hop constituency.)
Kane is a quick study. This collection was tightly edited, very clean, very linear, with a strong accessories range attached. His first shop will open in London in a month or so. It will carry his menswear. Smart move —there's a real breadth evolving here.
