Kym Ellery said her starting point for this collection was The Sound of Ice Melting, a 1970 installation piece by Paul Kos in which eight microphones record two blocks of ice in a room temperature space, and the result is played over speakers. She said: “I love the existential nature of the artwork, and I wanted to approach the collection in a similar way and to take very ambiguous references from the work.”
These references included the drapey, drippy scarf that hung suspended from the button and waist of an off-white tailored jacket, the droplet-like inset clear resin nodules that cascaded vertically down the blue skirt of a black-topped dress with tied cutaways above each hip, plus the silvery finish of a metal-coated nylon mac and chest-peplumed full-length dress in an opaque ice cube pattern. A fun one was the dinosaur print that riffed on Delftware. The bra tops came inset with sequins set in a snowflake pattern.
The Kos effect was less evident in the ruched, long floral dress worn over tie-ankled tailored pants, or the asymmetrically skirted tailored jackets and frock coats whose arms were inset with stripes of lace stitched with a deconstructed Ellery signature logo. Ellery sort of said—via a bit of extrapolation—that she makes complicated-looking clothes that feel easy to wear. Certainly, there was a lot of careful playing with distortedly unconventional volumes and detail here, yet these flourishes didn’t compromise function. And, as she mentioned a few times, there’s a retro element, too, visible especially in the pocketed flat-fronted and top-stitched long purple skirt, the Prince of Wales check skirtsuit, and the blue flared rib-knit look. Will it set the world on fire? No. But this collection was easy enough to warm up to.
