London in Some Sentences

While we’re over here wrapping the lower halves of our faces in wool, Marques’Almeida is like, hello — use your old jeans as scarves. Why didn’t we think of that?

What I did think of, however, when viewing Peter Pilotto’s collection via laptop was Henri Matisse’s “The Cut-Outs”: the most Instagrammed art of this winter season. If the reference was intentional at all, the nods were minimal, and it was a completely seamless transition from the pixellated prints of the less-grown-up Pilotto.

Also growing up is Christopher Kane — master fabric worker who managed to trick the eye into thinking that it was seeing looping, swirling, painterly lines of fabric when actually, if you’d just take a closer look, it was people about to engage in the art of sex.

At Burberry Prorsum, there were patchy suede pants and groovy floral wallpaper prints and handkerchief quilted coats plus leopard. Designer Christopher Bailey also answered the age-old question: how do I wear fringe without looking like a cowboy? Answer: wear so much of it that you start to look like a beautiful suede tree.

Erdem did leopard too, only his coat had a mohawk down the top of the sleeves. Perhaps it’s his way of reminding us that he does more “just” beautiful dresses — in fact, most impressive were his two coats that started neutral at the neck and by the knees gave way to peacock-gold iridescence.

Pause here for a bathroom break and a stretch and a moment to ask your cube-mate if they’re going to finish all their chips. Now carry on:

There were polo shirts, pussy bows and coffee beans (or baby blimps, tbd) at Mother of Pearl — a label that does refined “cheeky” well without that cheek prompting an eye-roll in return.

Markus Lupfer could have been Mother of Pearl’s sportier sister with his gold threaded pineapples, winged insects, pointy-eared riding hat and the actual bunny rabbits that hopped around because honestly, they are the new cats.

Cat free and proud was Emilia Wickstead who showed handsome curved sleeves on feminine knits. The whole collection was romantic until it wasn’t thanks to a shock of leather-as-latex and lacquered plaid pants. Punk but not at all, you know?

Roksanda’s collection wins for most Instagrammed of London — it erupted over fashion feeds like its own lava lamp swirls of marigold and maroon. The concluding looks boasted giant black tinsel window panes, and the whole collection was a loud cry for fur and color and life.

Though I’ve mostly avoided mentioning the most obvious of decades thus far, Topshop Unique was a cool combination of ’90s Ralph Lauren and you-know-what-year’s Penny Lane, plus a bunch of future-trends mixed in between.

Topshop broke my streak: J.W. Anderson was unapologetically 80s: the power-woman with a message who refuses to succumb to corporate pumps but has, thankfully, figured out exactly how much blush to use.

At Toga, your eye will begin at the shoulder that bears its look’s A-symmetrical sash, then drop, almost too quickly (make sure to pause for the lovely slouch), because all the excitement is happening at the pant hems — except for in one coat, colored bright Pepto pink. That will keep your eyes up for a while.

Finally, Giles was a trip — either on shrooms or Elizabethan fumes — and though the opening looks pretended to be somber in black, the close was a dress that begged if not absolutely required you lift up your skirt and can-can because, yes, you can can.

Thank you, London, for being so much fun.

Images via Style.com. For more fashion week words and whatsits, click here.