Dear Shaded Viewers and Diane,
Remember that picture of New Year's Eve’s celebrations in Manchester, that the internet was fawning over a couple of weeks ago, because it was so perfectly composed that it looked like a painting? There’s beauty to be found in a drunken disaster, if it fits into the snail shell-like curve of the Golden Ratio. Now imagine if everyone in the image had left home that evening wearing but the classiest of suits: that will give you a rough idea of what Charles Jeffrey’s signature drunk tailoring looks like on the catwalk, exemplary but twisted to “recreate the effect of being slumped in a buttoned-up jacket”. We often write of looks with an attitude – these, though, have all the airs and graces of the fuzzy end of a night out. They come in 80s proportions, their high waistlines held up by bungee cords with hooks, while belts are draped across the neck or coiled around the arm, their purpose forgotten. And the shirts underneath have French cuffs “to be rolled and bunched without cufflinks”, thank heavens. Beside the suiting, there’s corduroy and Pollockian denim, and knitwear: either long-sleeved and see-through with shoulders’ cutouts, or running high both at wrists and midriff. What made it all the more convincing though, were Charles Jeffrey’s models. Just like at his Fashion East’s debut last season, when Charles’ friends and family had danced in his clothes till they dropped (Emmanuel was there. I swear I had that picture somewhere…), this time they were stomping, swinging and swirling down the runway in bulky goth platforms, kabuki-like make-up and flushed post-club glow.
Later,
Silvia
