Giles Deacon had the confidence to harness the best of British spirit with relish and wit. In his debut collection, called Giles, he managed to marry a slightly peculiar, uptight-seventies-lady look—all nipped-waist suits, pussycat-bow blouses, and flowing printed gowns—with homegrown English craft. Deacon, 34, graduated from Central St. Martin s ten years ago with Hussein Chalayan and has spent the intervening years freelancing, with stints at Bottega Veneta and Gucci. So why choose London as a launchpad? "I live here. I love it," he said. "There s such a lot going on here if you dig around."
Deacon s international experience shows in the polish of his silhouettes—and in the roster of supermodels (Nadja Auermann and Eva Herzigova among them) who wore his precision-cut wide-shouldered jackets, pencil skirts, cashmere tank tops, and fan-pleated skirts. That, plus the deliberately chosen materials—hand-loomed bespoke jacquards, custom-made psychedelic woodland prints commissioned from the Glasgow School of Art, luxe Linton tweed from Scotland, and leather accessories, molded into the shape of stag beetles by artist-craftsman Justin Capp—gave the show what Deacon calls "a slightly odd, misplaced chicness." With its underlying thread of perversity (covered-up dresses that showed intriguing flashes of garter and seamed stockings) and just a hint of trippiness offsetting the very sensible, Deacon s collection put down a marker for a new English look.
