London Fashion Week this season was marked by some notable absences, as a number of emerging brands in particular opted to forgo a runway show, for reasons both financial and logistical. Meanwhile, Knwls’s Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault are riding high: they’ve just started a mysterious new design director job in Europe, and have several other projects in the pipeline—another denim job, a collab with a jewelry brand, a menswear capsule for an e-commerce site. They’re sitting this season out because they’re simply too busy right now to do a show. “It’s a nice position to be in,” said Arsenault. “It feels like an exciting moment.”
Despite the numerous plates the pair are spinning, they still found time to explore new territory with their fall collection. (It arrived via a playfully staged lookbook, as well as campaign images starring Iris Law shot at a mid-century house outside London: “We wanted it to look like you weren’t sure if she actually lives in the house, or if she just broke in,” said Knowles.) For while there were plenty of the Knwls Y2K signatures on show—miniskirts, thigh-high boots, oversized belts slung across the waist—the designers noted that the collection may serve as something of a kiss-off to many of these tropes. “It’s kind of a bit of the last goodbye to this whole 2000s era,” said Arsenault. Added Knowles: “We wanted it to be quite kitsch, but in a fab way—for it to celebrate all those Y2K brands that, when we were growing up, we thought were the ultimate in luxury, and then think about a way to make them feel Knwls.”
Titled “Baby” (as a tribute to Baby Phat, although they also liked the fact it could be the name of a rising indie band from a 2006 issue of NME), the collection also featured a ruched leather technique that was inspired, in part, by David Beckham’s 2000s wardrobe, as well as chunky metal studs sprinkled across sheer mesh pieces and glossy puffers with rib-knit sleeves and vests sewn in underneath. A series of especially intriguing looks took their cues from the velour Juicy Couture tracksuits of that era, with the off-kilter twist of speckled fading created by applying spray paint in the same way they would to bleach denim.
Over the past few seasons, Knwls have spoken increasingly about broadening their scope to appeal to a more mature customer—increasingly evident in the ambition of their work with more luxurious materials. There was a certain grown-up glamour to the butter-soft leather jackets and pants here that offered a hint of where they might head next, as well as a series of impressive sweaters, shawls, and hats that initially appeared as a knit but turned out to be a thin shaved shearling.
Knwls may be known for snatched corsets and waist-cinching laced tops, but comfort is something its designers have been focusing on more keenly over the past year or two. “Obviously in the lookbooks it’s styled in a quite extreme way, but if you break it down into individual pieces, we’ve been thinking about merchandising and the customer more than ever before,” said Arsenault. “We’ve seen the team in the studio wearing the pieces differently too, and we’ve taken that into account. It’s a nice challenge to say: ‘Okay, we want to make a sweatshirt, but it still has this silhouette or wash or rib detail that makes it feel really Knwls.’” It’s a testament to the pair’s strength of vision that, despite their endless high street and fast-fashion copycats, when you see the real deal, you’d never mistake it for anything else.
