Show Report
We plunged back into Bladerunner territory for A/W 2011 - or make that 3011, a brave new world of pointy-point shoulders, pencil skirts and black-on-black textures.
One tends to get a murky feeling in the pit of one's stomach when a fashion show begins with a press-release full of obscure, unpronounceable words. Jean-Pierre Braganza plastered one large across his A/W 2011 invitation too - Positronyx. I'm not entirely sure what that means - I'm not sure Braganza is either - but it sounds sufficiently techy and sci-fi to evoke the mood of his latest offerings.
We plunged back into Bladerunner territory for A/W 2011 - or make that 3011, a brave new world of pointy-point shoulders, pencil skirts and black-on-black textures. So make that a not-very-new world, then - but this time it did have a sharpness and precision that felt new indeed for Braganza. In the past, these kind of efforts have fallen slightly limp, but this time they were razor-honed and in-focus. The opening selection of looks set the tone, neat coat-dresses (one a dead-ringer for replicant Rachel's fur-collared number) and cinched waist suits in black, and tubby tweed in dark teal and charcoal. Giant articulated sleeves striped with ribbing cropped up on oversized jackets and knits with bands of transparency spanning the surface. Granted, there was a touch of Ghesquiere's Balenciaga to those shapes, and of Preen also, but comparisons to either are a compliment rather than critique.
But somehow, somewhere, Braganza lost his nerve, softening his taut tailoring with a wishy-washy waft of draped silk jersey printed in brash contrasts of scarlet and black. Maybe he was anxious to showcase his versatility, but in the end it only diluted his message.
