Anna Mason, where have you been?
The Royal College of Art graduate spent the early part of her career in Continental Europe, working with Karl Lagerfeld, Max Mara and Valentino. She founded her eponymous label in 2012, and since then has been catering mostly to private clients, although her ready-to-wear sells at a handful of retailers including Net-a-porter and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Her debut at London Fashion Week was a quiet one — a static presentation and short film at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge — but it wowed with its simplicity, strong shapes and light touch.
Mason took Victorian elements — leg-of-mutton sleeves, bows and frills — pared them down and worked them into laid-back dresses, tops and loose-fitting tailored suits.
The look was fresh and unfussy with just a whisper of nostalgia: Mason paired prim, white ruffle-front tops with lightweight khaki trousers, while a safari suit came with wide-leg cropped bottoms and a long ribbon rippling down the front of a patch-pocket shirt jacket.
Long dresses had full sleeves or bare shoulders with painterly patterns and colors inspired by Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny. Loose-fitting dresses and trousers were edged with broderie anglaise, and blouses came with Swiss dots.
Although Mason has kept a relatively low profile since she launched her label, and still pays much attention to her private clients, she plans to expand her ready-to-wear collection and move to new premises in central London later this year — and not a moment too soon.
