Backstage pre-show, the model wearing Look 24’s whopper of a fish hat (which Andreas Kronthaler had stuffed before sewing on a scaly skin of long-saved vintage paillettes) was feeling raw like sushi. It wasn’t the hat, which she reported comfortable, but the crowd around us: “The problem is society: There’s no respect for personal space. People are always pushing in from side to side as they pass.”
Once released into the clear waters of the runway, she proceeded upstream to the pits unmolested, part of an eclectic collection in which Kronthaler’s inspirations ranged from a photo of an Albanian freedom fighter (the jersey tracksuit in Look 18) to a boat head seen being dragged in the Thames in Henley (38’s inverted skiff hat).
He played with volumes that looked vaguely medieval (12) or wildly romantic (Bella Hadid, hidden in 60). There were corseted bosom-thrusting necklines in coral tones inspired by Botticelli’s Venus (13). From the chaps for chaps with bulging bottoms to the builders’ gloves and the vinyl smock tops in the shape of human chalked murder scene outlines, not to mention the necklaces made of crab claws taken from a seafood restaurant in Thailand, this was a wide-ranging romp through Kronthaler’s busy mindscape. Under the froth and hubbub of detail were hidden pools of calm in which lurked attractively woozy womenswear.
