Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton took us to the river Thames to inaugurate London Fashion Week, in the spontaneous old-school off-schedule style they adopted around the millennium, when things were less obediently regimented. Back from a pause of a year, they’d regrouped to show what they love most. “It’s back to our roots. A bit Victorian, Gothic, deconstruction, repurposing,” Bregazzi said.
They went for it on the spur of the moment. “We did a collection, and a lookbook. Then we found this place, and it looked like a natural runway,” laughed Thornton. “And so..” Undeterred by being too late to apply for an official Fashion Week slot, they were off again, showing on a boat-venue fixed to a wharf with an exhilarating panoramic view under Westminster bridge, lit by an unlikely burst of early spring sunshine.
These long-time indie London fashion designers staked their claim with the inspiration of Mary Shelley—dark lace, tied-on bustles, veils, pale traily dévoré dresses, and piled-on ‘Frankenstein’ hybrids of eiderdowns, tailoring, and army-surplus bomber jackets. There was a clear salute to the great British rave-grunge generation they emerged from, including the Kate Moss oversized trapper hats (courtesy of Steven Klein’s 1993 portrait). Partly, they said, they’d been looking through their archives, pulling out a white cotton tank fused with a ballet tutu they’d done years ago, and thinking about the hauls of antique bodices, decaying haberdashery, and spangly dresses that made up the way that London girls used to dress.
Well, these two have been grown-ups for a long time since they started from their tiny shop off Portobello market. Today, their brand captures a polished-up spirit of ‘vintage’ without being stuck in the past—a sheer silver-sequined slip with a puff of pastel marabou trapped under it said as much. Bregazzi says she’s worked for years “on making men’s tailored trousers fit for women”—the sort of pants she wears herself.
The big floral-printed eiderdowns she’s collected for years—relics from the pre-central heating domesticity of the British 20th century—have now also evolved into Preen by Thornton Bregazzi homewear. Some of it got styled up as stoles or wrapped as skirts, and one model swished along holding a plump frilled cushion in a transparent carrier bag. Next up, Thornton promised, there are printed wallpapers on the way. It’s grown ‘organically,’ as we might (too often) say in this industry. Another term for it might be the wisdom of staying true to yourself. How else can designers stand out amongst the oceans of homogenized product flooding the luxury market? Let’s hear it—in general—for ‘you do you.’
