Richard Nicoll

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Richard Nicoll poses himself as British fashion’s great existentialist. He pictures the people who populate his catwalk as outsiders, antiheroes…or, in this case, antiheroines. Just check out the lookbook for his new Resort collection. Against a brutalist concrete backdrop, Nicoll’s models cross paths without acknowledging one another, the very embodiment of chilly urban alienation. During a preview, he talked about “street clothes mixed with accepted forms of elegance, bad taste in high-class fabrics.” Clearly, the man has a very definite point of view.

But fortunately for Nicoll, what he says and what he does are at odds. The clothes he showed for Resort were not chilly at all, but rather supremely cool. Everything he indicated as dubious actually came across as efficiently chic. Python, for instance, struck him as a print in bad taste. It sure didn’t look that way in a reversible parka, reptile-printed silk jacquard on one side, plain canvas on the other. That registered as a very clever multipurpose item. And a long jersey dress embossed with snake said easy, sinuous glamour.

Nicoll made much of a paint-spatter effect, but reproduced in a Lurex jacquard, it seemed more like tweed than some downbeat urban excrescence. And if the designer was courting the synthetically tacky connotations of patent leather, he failed miserably with a blouson in a muted duck-egg blue that looked and felt wonderful.

New to Nicoll in this collection was his embrace of black: a black leather biker jacket, a black silk crepe T-shirt dress, a sundress in black denim whose sweetness was compromised by the long zip that snaked down its spine. A sexy sheath dress was made more so by zips front and back. There is an innuendo hidden in an outfit like that, but maybe that’s where Nicoll’s theory and practice meet. He sees himself pushing the limits of acceptability; we see clothes with a knowing sophistication.
—Tim Blanks
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Agi & Sam

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The hum of arrival has settled on Agape Mdumulla and Sam Cotton—better known as Agi & Sam. Only a season out from their 18-month stint in the young-designer-supporting MAN shows, they’ve got a new Topshop collection (out now), support from the industry (from Paul Smith to E. Tautz’s Patrick Grant), and a restless energy that makes even frenetic London look poky by comparison. (Their show today featured collaborations with separate companies to create shoes, bags, and laptop cases.)

Perhaps because of this and-the-kitchen-sink mentality, their collections vary widely season to season, though it’s usually safe to say they’ll be brightly colored and boldly printed. Both, broadly speaking, were true here. But the emphasis on sartorial pyrotechnics—the taped seams, the rubbery treatments, the three-dimensional “prints”—undercut some of the naïve charm that has animated collections past. This one, in any case, came prefaced by a sweetly meandering parable about an old man, attached to his usual clothes but curious about the outfits worn by the kids he sees on the bus. Hence, a bus-bench print. But the collection’s overall message was garbled. Sometimes, despite assurances to the contrary, it’s not just about the journey. It is the destination.
—Matthew Schneier
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