Collette Dinnigan opened her show to Blondie s "One Way or Another," an indication that the designer s usual prettiness was getting a punk makeover. The tip panned out, but for the most part it was the result of styling (though a little silver beaded shift did give you an edgy Joan of Arc-meets-Balmain vibe). Dinnigan finished her parade of dresses with the wayward touch of little back-seamed lace socks dotted with winking crystals and slouched into killer studded Louboutin pumps.
"This stuff can all get a bit too ethereal-fairyland, and it s like floating in too much mystery," she explained after the show, which was curiously called Fairy Tale. But some tales are more believable than others. Mystery was kept to a minimum in Dinnigan s mostly un-tricky silhouettes that let the material and embellishment speak for themselves.
And they did. No amount of the Undertones and Garbage on a soundtrack can distract from the fact that these dresses are made from exquisite stuff, particularly the custom laces. Check out the perfectly engineered placement of scallops on Dinnigan s lace tees, and the polka-dot motif at the hem of a dress that echoed the paillettes at the neckline. One aberration was the woolly yarn-loop embroidery that would appear to be a nod to winter in this rather un-wintry collection, but felt a bit crafty and wrong in this context. To stay warm, a better choice was the velvety black coat with a barely there trim of lace petals on the pockets and back. It s the kind of thing that might be chosen by Stevie Nicks—a woman who knows how to work romance with a different brand of darkness.
