Graphic Movement at Christopher Kane

Christopher Kane, SS16, London.

As ever, the catwalk show for Spring-Summer 2016 showed the latest results from the Christopher Kane laboratory. In many ways, this collection seemed to combine the colours and fabrications which Kane has used in the past with the sweeping sense of movement from last season’s collection which was inspired by life drawing.

Where there were straight lines, such as in the angular panelling and splices of coloured plastic, they almost never ran at a straight horizontal or vertical, instead cutting across garments at an angle. This movement was often accentuated by the combinations of colours and textures that were used with dense panels of lace or embroidery – and you would have to assume that these contrast pieces would be quite dense or have some sort of self-sustaining structure since panels of fragile laces would presumably have been far more romantic and the garments would have lost that graphic quality.

The paint splattered fabrics also had a sense of movement and immediacy, looking almost as though they had just been sprayed and left with the paint still dripping down the garments. At times, this painterly effect was reversed out on plain black or white backgrounds, echoing the gaping slits and cutouts used in other garments in the collection.

The use of embroidery as a scrawly embellishment also produced interesting results, with thread doodles across a piece of knitwear like a kid who had just attacked a white wall with some stray crayons. Probably the same kid hid the matching straps for some of the dresses, causing the grommets and draping to be held together with cable ties.

All of these details and use of angular design lines came together to give the collection a sense of lightness – while many of the details would have had to be carefully worked out and resolved, there was still a feeling as though something quite fleeting had just happened and had been captured in the clothing.