‘Little England’ takes over catwalks in Paris ahead of the EU referendum

It may already be too late…But as Britain prepares to vote on whether to
leave the EU, the Little
England look has suddenly become fashionable. Cricket jumpers, brogues,
boating blazers and even neo-Morris men popped up on the Paris catwalk
Wednesday.

Nor is fashion’s new-found anglophilia confined to the upper classes.
Sweatpants,
parkas, tartan and charity shop suits were everywhere as next year’s
spring-summer menswear shows hit the runways. In what could be interpreted
as a last desperate sop to Nigel Farage, the
most outspoken of the British Leave campaigners, double-breasted suits and
blazers are also back.

It may be some time however before we see the UK Independence Party leader
sporting a Balenciaga shoulder padded suit with high-heeled leather boots.
Or indeed one of the Belgium designer Walter Van Beirendonck’s
ribbon-trailing blazers inspired by English folk dancers.

Van Beirendonck told AFP that the pony club and Morris men motifs
throughout his new collection came from a damascene moment in a London flea
market.

Morris men

“I found a pile of vintage ribbons in a market in London. It triggered this
whole thing with the rosettes and Morris men for me to create this mixture
of
folklore and the future,” he added.

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A photo
posted by Walter Van Beirendonck (@waltervanbeirendonck) on Jun 14, 2016 at 12:23am
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He denied his show was directly about fears of a Brexit, or a poetic
European lament at the prospect of losing England.
But the designer admitted, however, that “I have never put so much black
into a collection”.

And he chose a riddle from the most English of books, “Alice in
Wonderland”
— “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” — as the title of his show.
“I was questioning why this was all happening,” said Beirendonck.
“We don’t have answers to our questions. I feel the world today is a
riddle
without an answer.”

Japanese designer Hiromichi Hochiai’s homage to English pastoral was more
literal, taking a scissors to cricket sweaters and remaking them all mixed
up.
He then matched them with shorts and most eye-catchingly with tartan
sweatpants.

Papal groove

With his influence everywhere to be seen on other catwalks, all eyes were
on what designer Demna Gvasalia would come up with to mark Balenciaga’s
first
ever men’s show.
And the iconoclastic Georgian — whose own street-influenced Vetements
brand has become the Paris trendsetter — did not lack daring.

He cheekily mixed oversized, shoulder-padded daywear suits that had more
than a hint of cartoon Mafiosa about them with much more tight-fitting
evening
wear “inspired by the ecclesiastical high ceremony” of the Vatican.
He even borrowed the “liturgical palette of papal purple, cardinal red”
and
cherry red for bishops, using the Holy See’s own suppliers of woven silk.

One black coated clerical combination, matched with knee-length blue
suede
boots, was set off by a Vatican yellow scarf worn like a liturgical
vestment.
His blue shirts pulled tight at the waist like blouson jackets also drew
admiring comment.

Ninety-nine years after Cristobal Balenciaga founded the label famous for
the sharpness of its cut, Gvasalia’s show was a tour de force of exaggerated
tailoring according to the critics, or “transformation through tailoring” as
he termed it.

The collection was all about “manipulation of the fabric… (and) a
wardrobe and a body, altering how both are perceived,” he said in a
statement.
“Clothes making the man.” (AFP)

Photo 1: Balenciaga.com

Photo 2: Walter Beriendonck.com