When Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton seek retreat from the fashion world, it is at their country place in Walberswick, Suffolk. Just over a century ago, the artist and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh spent a year in the village, and his botanical drawings, said Thornton, grace nearly every tea room in town. Those drawings and a broader consideration of arts and crafts informed this Preen collection. Which meant a) it was particularly pretty and b) team Preen have allowed its work life to invade its countryside idyll. Oh well, our gain.
The designers created decoupage-effect prints on quilted coats and jagged hemmed, smocked dresses. These were shown with matching mod-touched, triple-buckle boots. That heaped flower motif went 3-D on a dress garlanded with hand-embroidered floral patches, which were only partially attached to a long fitted dress. “Dream,” urged lettering at the shoulder. Thornton added, “The Arts and Crafts movement was in reaction to industrialization. And we feel like craft and anything that is hand-done is really important, especially in the digital age.”
Dresses featuring three shades of photographed floral overprinted on a William Morris–inspired grid over devore velvet were both dreamy and digital catnip: Instagram that. Ditzy floral ruffled dresses, a fantastic Pre-Raphaelite bride’s gown with pie-crust collar and six tiers of ruffles at the hem, and a gathered-on-one-side shirtdress with two cuffs per arm that appeared in multiple fabrications were other landmarks in this excursion through Preen country.
