It’s hard to overstate the Bloomsbury Group’s impact on culture. The informal assortment of writers, artists, and thinkers who congregated in London during the early part of the 20th century included Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and art critic Roger Fry, to name a few, and their informal gatherings played a crucial role in shaping our current understanding of literature, journalism, and aesthetics. Bohemians who preached a rejection of bourgeois ideals, they were the starting point for Mark Badgley and James Mischka when it came time to consider pre-fall.
The idea of a collective, multidisciplinary take on creativity elevated the ambitions of the duo’s collection. The pre-fall season, which can devolve into paint-by-numbers lineups of retail-friendly hits, rarely yields new ideas, but Badgley and Mischka seemed keen to raise expectations. Updated techniques and materials gave the collection its life, adding modernity to familiar concepts like ball gowns, party frocks, and glitzy jumpsuits. Many of the most compelling moments involved neoprene, which featured on blazers covered in abstract floral prints and lively cocktail dresses. The ease of the scuba fabric is a selling point—you’ll never have to run an iron over the aforementioned jacket—but it was elegant enough to feature alongside silks and satins. Also used to great effect: clear sequins which layered over screen prints to add a subtle sheen.
As always, things finished off with a gala gown or two, and the customer-favorite portrait collar looks were as stately as ever. The real fun came via techniques that harked back to a 20th-century ideal of elegance. Plum satin and crystals? You don’t need a history lesson to appreciate that.
