Yohji Yamamoto has often mentioned how fabric speaks to him. Lou Dalton, too, seems like a designer who is in constant conversation with her materials, and also with the details in her collections. Take, for example, the ribbons attached to the collection s zippers, putting these functional necessities into relief, rather than obscuring them. Or the oversize pockets with heavy topstitching. A dusty-pink cashmere/wool mix used on sweaters and pants had been brushed and on the reverse had a gray, molten effect. It all looked precise.
The collection was triggered by an old photo of Dalton s dad dressed in a boiler suit, and sure enough there were versions of it, both in dark check and classic MA1 nylon. That photo and Dalton s "feeling a bit maudlin," as she put it backstage, spawned a looking-back at the 1960s (she mentioned the Apollo project and Thunderbirds cartoon strips). The garments didn t have a need for storytelling—the clothes spoke loud enough themselves. Tapered, cropped trousers had been given width and they felt on point—fresh against most men s slimmer choices. Cargo pockets were positioned askew. Inner pockets on coats and jackets peeked out, rendered in a different color and material than the outerwear itself.
The focus on functionality is a recurring theme for Dalton, who here created a sense that garments were in a state of flux, with detachable arms transforming jackets into gilets, or two-in-one coats with the inner coat protruding underneath the outer one. She said that she wanted to give men a sense of control, to expose the interior, their sensitive side. It all looked desirable and wearable, and the collection also fit into men s fetishizing of the functional (what else can you do when toiling away in an office?). It s a thoroughly modern fetish and in a way, a paradoxical one; but it’s this lack of real necessity that makes these clothes fashionable.
