Contours was the title of Marios Schwab’s Spring/Summer 2014 collection, which showed at the dark cave that is this season’s NewGen tent in Regent’s Park. It opened with a long-sleeved daytime dress with traces of blue airbrushing on it, a song from Basic Instinct played, and Greek pool sandals were featured throughout. So what was it all about? The show notes revealed a medley of ‘amorphous forms’, ‘ghostly clouds’ and ‘a skin deep sensuality’. On the catwalk, austere black and white dresses morphed into austere black and white separates before black and white floor-length lace dresses paved the way for a series of toga-type dresses.
The collection had all the elements of the season – metallic stuff in a chainmail material, translucency, and of course aforementioned pool sandals – but between the desert references and the Helen of Troy vibes, it wasn’t entirely easy to pin down its core. What stood out more than anything was a dark indigo nineties frayed-edge dress, the sleeves of which were stapled on with big old Frankenstein clips. In the show notes it was referred to as ‘raw’ and it was this exact feature, which suited Schwab’s aesthetic best.
