It’s all well and good to talk about the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, but there’s a generation of young designers who were raised on Y2K values. The trashy, moody bad girls of the turn of the millennium loomed large in Ashley Williams’s imagination for Spring, a motley crew of fictional and real-life characters that started with Emily the Strange and ended with Avril Lavigne.
The 27-year-old designer has a soft spot for a skater’s wardrobe—her boyfriend, Palace Skateboards founder Lev Tanju, sat in the front row—although this season the vibe was more Camden Market goth does Black Swan, and PVC trenchcoats came emblazoned with a tag that read “Ashley Williams Ballet School” and were worn with black tutus, demented tiaras, and fishnet tights.
That unapologetically brazen attitude also speaks to the aesthetic of a certain stylish bad gal of our times, and you can imagine Rihanna strutting her stuff in one of Williams’s “No Code of Conduct” tees or in her slip dress printed with flies and laced up in neon straps. After an age of buttoned-up minimalism, it’s an exuberant and cheeky sexiness that cool young girls can relate to right now. The striped and pointy elf hats, though, are perhaps a tad too bad to be good.
