Show Report
It struck a chord and caught a mood in a way few other House of Holland collections have managed.
'N.A.L.G.O.' read the print across Henry Holland's t-shirt as he took a bow - a cutesy acronym, spawned by Holland's Twitter feed, for 'Not A Lot Going On'. Frankly, this could be applied to many of his collections - but not this one. For Autumn/Winter 2010, Holland's trip was downtown New York girl gangs and hip-hop culture, printing classic paisley bandana patterns across his own gang colours of pastel turquoise, pink and washed-out denim blue. The same cropped up across Holland's hosiery, and knitted into his abbreviated sweaters and tube mini-skirts. It also seemed as if he'd been flicking through early 1990s issues of American Vogue, specifically Karl Lagerfeld's collections ripping off rip-off Chanel. Thus Katie Hillier's Canal Street bling jumbo chains and oversized hooped earrings came threaded with scraps of that paisley silk, and he even fashioned his own 'HOUSE OF HOLLAND' emblazoned knicker-elastic, worn loud and proud Marky-Mark style at the waistband of cotton jersey skirts, or wound into a bandage dress of alternating stripes. It wasn't about being edgy, or even unique, but it struck a chord and caught a mood in a way few other House of Holland collections have managed. Henry even managed to cram a few trends in, albeit done the Holland way - cue fantastic chunky candy-coloured shearling biker jackets, and the same fur tufting up on sweatshirts and miniskirts. Those block-lettered acronym t-shirts abounded, of course. Already modelled on a self-titled blog by a bevvy of celebrity fans, they're Holland's new 'thing', and he's now selling them via a new Blackberry application for immediate order. It's a pity he isn't offering the rest of this preppy, poppy collection too - it would shift like the proverbial hotcakes.
