According to the undisputed authority that is Abraham Moon & Sons, the 1837-founded Yorkshire textiles supplier, the pattern that dominated this Ermanno Scervino collection—as it does so many others—was “designed by King Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, as livery for his hunts at Abergeldie Castle on Scotland’s Deeside.”
The Prince of Wales check is an interplay of bold black lines against a gray background formed from an artfully arranged static of houndstooth. Unlike leopard print—the second dominant pattern in this collection, and arguably the prime conventionally “feminine” pattern—it is man-made.
Here its finest expression was in Look 1, a fine, soft-shouldered overcoat for women worn over a pale lace dress. Once the collection shifted a gear into its “contrast” of masculine-sourced garments speckled with rhinestones and Swarovski crystals, it became Prince of Wales Goes to Vegas check. This was impressively realized, especially in the Look 3 wide-leg, jacket-cinched suit, and as the enthusiastic crowd telegraphed, there is a keen clientele for this silk-and-steel Scervino combination.
The counterpoint to that first coat was a mohair-fluffy topcoat in leopard for men further into the show. This hinted at would could have been a fun screwball runway comedy of code swapping, but as a pitch it fell quickly away. Sparkly rib knits for men came in an equivalent tricolor pastel for women. There were plenty of attractive and clearly finely made pieces, especially the shearlings and the suiting. Barely a hemline was left without an underlayer of lace. Swarovski-adorned Peter Pan collars played the spangled innocent against the suggestive moue of semi-sheer slip dresses.
From its rhinestone Peaky Blinders section to its Matrix-meets-Showgirls moment, this was a solidly-Scervino Scervino show that made you reflect on quite how and why it is that one of the most consistently referenced designers in menswear and womenswear alike was a 19th-century heir to the British throne. Weird, huh?
