While Freddy Coomes and Matt Empringham’s first two collections were presented under the banner of Aletta, the labels in their latest garments— their third collection—bear a new name: A Letter. While the shift to the homonym was a bureaucratic necessity, it nonetheless prompted a stock take of their creative practice: processes, intentions, parameters.
In a stark white cube in one of Central London’s rising gallery districts, they presented a body of work that concretized their recent contemplations—an exhibition of 15 looks styled on white mannequins, each topped with a hastily chopped, shake-n-go bob. Their first physical presentation—and their second collection as Newgen recipients—invited detailed engagement with clothes that warranted it.
The collection was an extension of the designers’ sustained interest in the properties and potential of paper: here, the crepe varieties often used to create artificial flowers. The result had a sharp, visceral appeal. There was a punchiness to the blunt, geometrical contrast of, say, a vermillion spaghetti-strapped top with hole-punched polka-dots, hanging loose over a box-pleated skirt, its dot pattern executed in ink. Or a skirt, bluebell in hue and form, with a subtly flounced hem and ruffled rim running down its back, its implied fluidity denied by its rigid materiality.
The relationship between visual impact and material reality was at once pleasing and perplexing and, ultimately, a crux. The pair have previously discussed their work in terms of its uncanniness—and the term ‘surreal’ has cropped up in writing about it, but an air of loopiness didn’t really go with the hyperconscious intention on show here. The majority of the pieces resulted from a painstaking investigation into the physical capacity and integrity of their chosen material. The 20-inch width of the crepe paper rolls they work with set a key parameter, for example, directly informing the construction of an evening gown with a geometric bodice and peplum in sheened black up top, and a skirt in tiered peach layers that tumbled to the floor below.
Even pieces in woven fabrics abided by a similar construction logic: a marinière jersey came with a blunt bateau neck; diaphanous scrims of gauze, decorated with origami bows, hung over mannequins like tissue paper carapaces; dense satin dresses were expertly cut and draped from single pieces of cloth, held together by a rear zipper. Even on the level of tone and texture, the dry sheen of the silk echoed the paper’s deep pigments and matteness, resonating with a satisfying naivety.
The only garments that really interrupted the collection’s paper doll hegemony were its marled wool sweaters—scratchy, humdrum knits, some the color of a wet, wintry field. They looked like the sort of piece your grandmother might wear for the sake of stubborn nostalgia rather than comfort, though a study of the finely puckered surface revealed a composition more refined than its original referent.
The contrast of proletarian solidity with bright paper pieces—severe, elegant, delicate artifacts—outlined a wry, distinctly British wit that fuels Coomes and Empringham’s creative instincts. It also showed an eagle-eyed appreciation for this culture’s inherent gawkishness, and a nuanced understanding of how to deploy it to confoundingly chic effect. What perhaps niggles, though, is the fuzziness around where to place the work. The pair are resistant to it being framed as fine art, but the presentation’s gallery context accentuated an uncanny, almost affronting sense of objecthood for the clothes. That also raised the question of whether their output works better as a presentation of ideas: as meta-fashion, dialogues on materials, processes and cultural contexts. Clothes about clothes.
With their papery composition, you can’t help but wonder how these pieces will hold up when worn (a thought underscored by the rain outside the presentation), not to mention how flatteringly they’ll accommodate bodies that aren’t of mannequin proportion. Coomes and Empringham will be taking their collection to a Paris showroom next week, where similar questions will no doubt be posed. With A Letter still in its relative infancy, the experience will no doubt prove consolidating, spelling out a prospective direction. If one’s things sure, the moves that happen in its wake will be worth keeping an eye on.
