Christopher Kane Womenswear A/W10

It's almost slightly terrifying how Christopher Kane manages to articulate an unexpected motif, fabric or theme every season and condense it into an idea that comes off looking fresh. These things that are imbued with 'naff' connotations, once they are in the hands of Kane, suddenly a magic wanded wave comes all over them and we're wondering why we had never considered gingham/crushed velvet/dinosaurs to be so damn good. This time, the motif of choice was the embroidered flower. These weren't necessarily pretty flowers either. These were if truth be told, bordering on being quite ugly. But placed on sharply cut lace, leather and pvc dresses that hugged the body and suddenly we have a "so wrong it's right" situation on our hands. The latter portion of the show ventured into gem and crystal embellishments that had definite religious iconography references. We continue to happily worship at the alter of Kane as he takes us down a road where flowers grow on the sartorial soil of shiny patent leather.

Dazed Digital: There are so many ways you can go with florals - how did you choose this particular direction of the florals for the collection?
Christopher Kane: I just wanted them to be tactile and make the embroidery really artisinal.  Florals, you know, you have seen it all done before. I wanted them to be really different and bold and then with the patent, there's a twist and a sense of fetish to it. It just makes it ironic and a little ironic.

DD: Do you think that's slightly bordering on being bad taste?
Christopher Kane: I just think why not? Every great designer I know does that and it's about taking an idea and making people believe it. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no right way of doing anything.

DD: How do you manage a motif every season?
Christopher Kane: Four weeks we had nothing, it was dire straits and I had just finished doing Versus and I came back to the studio. I came across patent and I thought it would be great to embroider over it and we did the gems which was based on the Vatican and also a little Priscilla Presley. Then we thought 'Let's just do a little chenille flower' and it came back a bit wrong and looking like that. It was a dandelion on patent and I knew we had found it. It was so hot!

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