At Pitti this morning, Gaby Day, Pringle of Scotland’s freshly incumbent head of menswear, presented the first collection for the brand produced entirely under her aegis. The alum of Gloverall and Erdem explained that her mission is to take traditional techniques in knitwear and twist them to modern effect in search of product that plays to a younger customer.
The collection was strongly inflected by the Nordic-imported, locally adapted knitwear craft of the Shetland Isles. This was gently mixed with outerwear shapes imported from mountaineering.
A cardigan in rough Shetland wool and fastened by metal climbing clips featured traditional island patterns that were delicately mismatched by asymmetry and a subtle color change from white-on-black to black-on-white divided by the line of the spine. Elsewhere, traditional patterns were collaged via patchwork and angles in an angora merino–blend sweater available in olive- or burgundy-based colorways. Sometimes the graphic naivety of Shetland patterns were blown up as a stitched relief in single-color oversize Guernseys, or used in mismatched hand-knit patchworks that were meant to echo Taatit rug designs. Patchwork argyles complemented the collection of her womenswear counterpart, Fran Stringer, as did the intarsia lion motif sweaters that marked the return of overt branding for a label that has long steered clear of it. Away from the knits there were some gently attractive work jackets and tapered pants in olive, gray, and navy wool cotton; light, water-repellant parkas; and woven-shell quilted jackets. The climbing references, said Day, were a nod to the use of Shetland knits on the first successful expedition to scale Mt. Everest. This collection didn’t count as a new peak boldly conquered for Pringle, but Day set out a convincing enough basecamp for future ascent.
