New Romantics and Sloane Rangers might seem like strange bedfellows. Then again, chez Hillier Bartley, disparate British references often live happily under the same roof. Designer Luella Bartley knows exactly how to shake up Savile Row tailoring—a quintessentially English look has been rolling through London this season, incidentally—and this time around, she spiked those traditional codes with counter-culture cool. To wit, a double-breasted houndstooth suit was punked up with a transformative zipper across the waist (essentially a two-for-one, to be worn as a cropped jacket or tailcoat) and a clever origami pleat along the trouser.
The duo has a taste for glam rock, too, though the fantastic new party pants were an ode to the King of Pop, and that sinewy, MJ-inflected aesthetic was a nice counterpoint to the more exaggerated suiting. Bartley has mastered the art of the going-out top, and for Pre-Fall, her magenta blouse took the prize with its exquisite draping and elegant Adam Ant–style wrapped statement sleeves. The trapeze-shaped “cassette” bags that came in rich purple suede and metallic green were a winner for evening, too, a chic and practical replacement for the classic tricky-to-handle minaudières.
Admittedly, dresses aren’t usually Hillier Bartley’s bag, and yet this season the designer nailed the idea both for night and day. The most eye-catching in the bunch came covered in a gorgeous Kansai Yamamoto–inspired print, one Bartley created herself after a series of life-sketching classes taken over the summer holidays last year. Blown up big and abstracted, the sketches of the female body lent an appealing curvilinear line to asymmetric shift dresses, what Bartley is calling a “pillowcase” silhouette, modeled in DIY-punk styling. The cotton T-shirt dresses were cut with the same angular proportions and splashed with hand-painted slogans—women trouble and bedlam, for example—they captured the rebel spirit for a casual mood. And given their affordable price point, those tees will offer the brand’s youngest fashion-mad fans a chance to join the band.
