J.W. Anderson called his show Chamber of Isolation. The clinical white quilting of the first two outfits looked like it d been stripped from the walls of a padded cell. The third outfit could have been an institutional gown cut from PVC so it would wipe clean easily. Anderson dubbed his pre-fall collection Domesticity of Monogamy. Here, he imagined a woman so oppressed by that domesticity that she d flipped her wig. The makeup was intended to suggest bitten lips. That was one of the details that made the show somewhat impenetrable. The questions Anderson posed backstage were these: "Where are women? Are we in a flat-line?" Maybe he was attempting an update on Freud s notorious "What do women want?" The flat-line certainly made its presence felt with the padded nylon pieces, the fishermen s hats, and the PVC bibs that strapped on like Kevlar vests, all alternately readable as constrictive or protective of female fragility (both, by the way, Anderson s readings).
"Awkward modernity" was another of the designer s reference points, and in that he was successful with his choice of proportion and fabric. He has often found beauty in the bizarre. There were skirts here in crystal-studded puffa fabric that had an oily glamour, only slightly muted by the blurry blanket-check tops that partnered them. The padded vest in pinstripes with matching pants had the skewed strictness that has distinguished Anderson s work in the past. A mad housewife could do a lot worse than the long sweaters over longer plaid skirts.
