and in his newspaper prints at Balenciaga Demna Gvasalia substituted fake news for fake good news. In a preview of her Alexander McQueen collection on Saturday, Sarah Burton talked about “the healing power of flowers”. She had visited Kew Gardens, which holds one of the biggest seed banks in the world and, quite literally, makes magic as a centre for scientific botanical research. As Burton reminded us, “Most medicine comes from plants.”
But there was also an anti-waste message hidden in the de- and reconstructive method of this collection. Burton talked about a certain kind of eccentric British country life where one dresses up in couture-like shapes and saves garments forever. “Old treasures,” she reflected. “Ball gowns chopped up and put back together.” She’d been thinking about the found objects that might enter into such a country wardrobe, and “the idea of passing things down”, and she expressed it in a dense red knit, cut up and re-assembled with zips, adorned with all sorts of country life and heritage symbols in bullion embroidery, pearls and gems. Then came Barbour-like oil skin country jackets and trousers re-appropriated into something a biker would wear, and a dress with big Victorian gigot sleeves.
Wet-haired as if they'd been caught in the rain whilst gardening, a terrific cast of models - including some more curvaceous girls - had purpose to their step in the Jardin de Luxembourg orangery, embodying that slightly wild country girl character. If she exists at their young age is a good question - we can only hope - and when a series of decortiqué bustiers hit the runway, followed by unravelling white dresses, it was hard not to think of Miss Havisham. "It's almost like she's a rose," Burton fleetingly noted as she passed her floral gowns in the making back at the preview. The collection she showed summed up the at once grand and very frail nature of such a flower.
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