So, Joseph. Yesterday, it announced Givenchy, Chloé, Gap, and Rag & Bone alum—and former trend forecaster—Susana Clayton as its creative director following the departure of Louise Trotter. Clayton has yet to slide her feet under the Joseph desk: This collection is the penultimate Trotter-authored collection we will see.
It was very her. After so many showroom appointments—too many recently, following Joseph’s fall from the show schedule and failure to do much else instead of them—I could almost see Trotter’s gesticulating and hear her describing a collection that featured lots of interaction between menswear workwear detail and rough and smooth fabrications, which of course featured leather shirting, a shirt dress, and quirkily hacked, wide-cut pants.
Trenches and shirts featured accentuated and unfastened leather storm flaps over silk. A fine pale olive utility jacket and a generously volumed chambray blue trench featured the same Trotterish twist without the contrasting fabric. Another was the linen boucle mini apron above a skirt of pistachio plissé silk, meant to lower the emphasis of a full look topped by a blazer in the same boucle. Leather trousers featured long drawstring pockets—pouches, really—on the front of each leg, a motif repeated in silk on a pair of red leather shorts. A muslin-feel-but-voile folkish blouse that came with a hood was a nice mix of analog retro and sportswear contemporaneousness. A fitted jersey dress in pale blue was, simply, that.
