Every collection Louise Trotter designs begins with the pant: “That’s what Joseph is famous for. So I start with the trouser that I want to wear and build up from that.” This Resort, Trotter’s trouser-divination led her to two key styles; navel-grazing, full-legged remixed cargo pants in silky-touch sateen and south-of-the-knee leather Bermudas in cranberry. Both cargo pants and Bermuda shorts are also integral elements in two very different uniforms, one military, one national, and this hinted at the broader preoccupation of this collection.
Trotter trawled a broad swathe of time and place for the uniforms whose functional elements she refigured as decorative. First there was the uniform of sin: a pair of tapered, striped pants in robust linen/cotton were, she said, based on 1920s prison issue. At the end she had a full cardinal red collarless dress that smacked of the cassock. In between were duster coats, one in a lovely yolky yellow that came top-stitched with chore coat pocket details. A full skirt in khaki drill, far lighter than it looked, featured trapunto stitch quilting at its belt and hem, while a reversible shearling jacket aped the shape of an M65 lining. The exaggerated sailor collar detail on a long, loosely skirted backless dress worked marvelously as an unlikely uniter of surplus and seductiveness.
Motif in chief in this detail-rich collection was the apron, issued as whimsical appendix to dungaree dresses, prison-striped hopsack separates, and Wedgwood blue shirting in which it came as a removable bib. This was a beguiling attempt to construct a uniform for now out of the many uniforms of then.
