What do you get when you cut a thick, techno-treated, Japanese-milled crepe that you found in Paris into a navy coat—and then trim the collar and sleeves with Peruvian-inspired fringing? "I call it my Poldark coat," said Henry Holland today, "and I've really got to stop doing that." If you've already seen the show—a period potboiler from the BBC that had half of Britain swooning over Aidan Turner's torso when it aired here recently—then you'll know just what he means. If not, you can find out when it premieres on PBS this month. The point, though, is that when you mix your ingredients as willfully as Holland does, you never quite know what will come out of the oven.
Holland's main flavors here were the aforementioned Peru, he said, and "Cali skater girls." That seasoning came through loud and clear when the fringing edged denim or sliders. Also when it was used for tassels at the midsection of a great little vest/skirt in that same crepe that was melded by buttons and cut to flash pops of lime Lycra below. Peruvian-ish stripes were jumbled and then rendered in flashes of fluoro in a highly Holland-aise pulsating jacquard, served up in iterations of cutesy, kooky, and party-party. Aztec-looking zigzags were distilled into Bridget Riley-like migraine graphics. Broderie anglaise prettified a faux roughly woven, shrunken hoodie based on a Stüssy knockoff the designer bought in Tijuana when he was 12. It was paired with a matching '70s sports-short hemmed mini. Especially effective were the scrunchily volumized Mean Machine florals on pressed printed leather, which came in two punchy colorways on boob tubes, bikers, and backpacks. It sounds loco, but it worked.
