He’s done it again. Christopher Kane returned this season with a collection of his greatest hits. Here is everything we love him for, the bold graphic scribbles of black tape over mesh, a perfect tight off-the-shoulder dress, buckles, mini bags, witchy black velvet and so on. The show notes described this season as 'sexual' and there was certainly a virility running through it, silk panels interlocked in brilliant, phallic shapes and embracing, interwoven bodies found themselves embroidered over skirts or running down the entire front of a dress. To the soundtrack's pleas of 'deep inside', panels of lace bubbled large and bulbous like cells and trademark two-tone velvet was tantalisingly hot and cold in baby blue and blood red. It wasn’t all erotica; chainmail shimmered at the top of dresses, reminding us that Kane’s woman is more than capable of fighting off unwanted advances. Flat shoes and matter-of-fact black velvet reinforced that strength, though it was broken up with brilliant over-sized jewelled buttons.
Shimmering dark pink lurex and a blue shiny choker will undoubtedly be the wish-list items, though it was a collection stuffed with winners. While, like Simone Rocha, some may criticise Kane for sticking too closely to what he knows, there’s an intelligence and self-awareness to his designs that enrich them beyond shapes or fabrics. Basically as the master of sex and sparkles, to quote his own show music, all we want is 'more, more, more'.
