Let's just go ahead and call today Super Print Monday, shall we? If print was a sport in the Olympics today we'd have the finals - although Mary Katrantzou may have just gone ahead and won the race by showing yesterday, ahead of the rest, Bolt and Pistorius-style. Michael van der Ham would be the new kid on the block so he needed a collection strong and individual enough to set him apart from the competition. I'm not convinced he did, although he'd probably make the medals table.
Inspired by Joan Mirø and Malian photographer Malick Sidibé, van der Ham followed his instinct for a collage, which certainly led him in the right direction. But it was mainly this juxtaposition of panels and patterns that made this read like a van der Ham collection. The apron skirts were great and they came, this quickly becoming a London prerequisite, sequinned, beautifully so. Perhaps the scheduling, showing a little after Peter Pilotto, in the same venue, did not help either, perhaps print fatigue is setting in. No matter, the lack of enthusiasm does not mean this was a bad collection, whatever that might mean. It was pretty and it will look even prettier on an edited rail in a chic store and it will sell well. I guess what it lacked in newness it made up in old world charm. And really, who doesn't like charm?
