When designers launched their pre-fall collections this season, they presented plenty of mixed media but no mixed messages. Pre-collections are the way to frame one’s brand USP within the context of commercially viable, and often slightly cheaper,
When designers launched their pre-fall collections this season, they presented plenty of mixed media but no mixed messages. Pre-collections are the way to frame one’s brand USP within the context of commercially viable, and often slightly cheaper, pieces. These are destined for the shops rather than the pages of magazines. Yet these smaller collections provide a means for designers to experiment in between their catwalk presentations, teasing out strands from previous collections, while simultaneously developing ideas for the coming season.
And so it’s no surprise that one of the big trends for autumn/winter 2011 – mixed media, the varying of textures and fabrics within one single garment – should creep up in the pre-fall collections too. At Chloé and Céline, where designers Hannah MacGibbon and Phoebe Philo have been experimenting with texture for several seasons now, juxtaposing butter-soft leather with rampantly tousled wools and furs, there were knitted jackets with fur sleeves and collars, wool tunics over blouses in monochrome white on black, and white shirts with contrasting sleeves that had been partially dip-dyed blue. And at Maison Margiela Margiela and Givenchy, the effect was more tonal, with camel hair panelling adorning beige suiting and coats, and khaki leather sleeves attached to brown and neutral tops, shirts and jackets.
It has something to do with the structuralism and layering aethestic that has dominated the fashion scene in recent seasons – the next step onwards from a purity of line and shade that brought in clean, geometric cuts, and nonchalant tone-on-tone ensembles moves towards imbuing both of these things with a little more, well, interest. Hence the new colour-blocking for autumn is done not necessarily in visual terms but in tactile ones – where this panelling for pre-fall takes contrast as its directive, many autumnal versions attempt to blend differences by way of texture and print, while highlighting the almost awkward juxtaposition of surfaces. In Nicolas Ghesquière’s pre-fall collection for Balenciaga, for instance, there were floral and paisley prints in banded strips across skirts and repeated on tights. Here too were woollen with contrasting necklines and sleeves, shoulder yokes in peacock atop a jumper in claret. They anticipated autumn/winter’s geometrically blocked jumpers with different coloured sleeves, as well as shirts which came with one frontal plane grey, the other white, as if buttoning two entirely separate garments together.
This is the essence of the pre-collection: to shake up and invigorate whichever route a designer is currently treading, giving them a bit of commercial space to mix things up a little.
The pre-fall collections go into stores at the end of May.
Harriet Walker is a fashion writer at The Independent. Her book Less is More: Minimalism in Fashion is out now, published by Merrell. Zoë Taylor has appeared in Le Gun, Bare Bones, Ambit and Dazed & Confused. She is currently working on her third graphic novella and an exhibition.
