Christopher Kane, who’s back in charge of his own brand, made his return to the London runway for the first time since 2020, showing in the enormous Roundhouse venue in Camden. The show was packed with guests, including Kane’s pal and fellow designer Roksanda Ilincic.
Amid the kerfuffle of arrivals, Kane and his team also managed to make time for the national one-minute of silence in tribute to the queen at 8 p.m. local time, on the eve of Monday’s funeral.
Kane revisited many of his signature themes in this show, including the mechanics and makeup of the human body, lingerie and bodycon dressing. He has a keen interest in science, and the body, and his second, more casual collection, More Joy, riffs on human sexuality.
This spring collection was more of an anatomy class, and certainly gave the audience a jolt. Plastic strips resembling a ribcage ran down the front of a gray sweaters or formed the bodices of a lace-edged lingerie dresses in shades of mint and lemon.
Two fabric cutout hands, red muscles and ligaments in full view, covered the shoulders and bodice of a slinky pink dress, or clasped the waist of a Champagne-colored gown with a matching cape.
Kane said he was thinking about “skeletal structures as an invisible shield, an armour. It was about protecting and dissecting the body and showing symbolical strength and power.”
The chunky silver clasps that held his lovely, granny-ish cardigans or twinsets together, he added, were like medical instruments, but in a “beautiful, feminine” way.
The best looks here were the most straightforward, unadorned ones. They included short, floral cheongsam dresses, with Kane noting that the flowers were “symbolic of love death, celebrations and condolences.”
In yet another tribute, Kane’s lovely, oversized knits in shades of charcoal, sage and rose, had a 1950s elegance and recalled the countryside wardrobes of the late Queen Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret.
