Jonathan Anderson is young enough that he didn't directly experience the '80s, let alone any of the other decades that fashion is cyclically obsessed with. So all nostalgia is faux for him. Where did an idea come from? Does it even matter? That's why Anderson's collections are like Chinese whispers—echoes layered on echoes, hints of the familiar twisted strange. There was plenty in his Pre-Fall that embodied this creative process. Like the corduroy pants with the wide velvet cuff, which Anderson defined as "'60s fabric, '70s pockets, '90s style." Or the capelet-ed rayon blouse in a '30s-via-'70s pattern, paired with a felted miniskirt. A Superfly bomber in the mohair that toy maker Steiff uses for teddy bears topped a bowed blouse in a checked fabric that Anderson said was more traditionally used for hunting clothes. "Nothing works together," he added gleefully. "When something makes me uncomfortable, I resist the temptation to make it look good."
Such a challenging declaration is typical of Anderson. It may not be one that makes for conventionally appealing clothes, but that is scarcely what he's after. "An element of the grotesque" is closer to the truth. Here, there was a tennis dress made from a black leather mesh that was slightly greasy to the touch. Tapestry tops were patched out of chenille, bouclé, and wool, as stiff and dry as the jersey the designer used in a skating dress. He claims he's currently in love with the floppiness of shirt cuffs, so they were big on tops, and even floppier when attached to the hem of trousers, elongating them so they completely covered shoes with chunky heels in mother-of-pearl, made by a French company that usually manufactures accordions! (Anderson's brief notes did, after all, make reference to "French eclecticism.")
How unpromising it all reads, how inexplicably irresistible it was in reality. It's easy to see why the uncompromising Anderson has attracted such a devoted coterie of fans. "I've never been a designer designer," he said. "I see it more as a look, what's new right now." And this—with its odd fabrics and peculiar proportions, cerebral and sensual—looks just that. New right now.