As the audience trooped into John Galliano s gritty urban set complete with burned-out car, Mr. Bojangles was looping on the soundtrack. In fact, that grizzled old soul was the inspiration for a show that celebrated street musicians, from the jazzbos of Bourbon Street in New Orleans to the drum-beating Hare Krishnas who never tire of trolling London s Oxford Street.
Galliano s genius lies in his ability to transform the most arcane sources into irresistible fashion delirium, and his spring 2006 collection was no exception. It was a back-to-front affair, starting with funereal evening wear and ending with one of the designer s Leigh Bowery–influenced pagan lovefests, featuring pit stops in Peru, Appalachia (hobo chic is another Galliano signature), and a Formula One racetrack.
Highlights? There was some ingenious play with silk scarves, which showed up as the lapels on a pinstripe jacket and as a trompe l oeil shirt under a leather waistcoat. A Shaker quilt applied to a denim jacket had a why-didn t-I-think-of-that logic, and Galliano s patchwork jeans reached new heights of sequined, embroidered overload (though the denim jumpsuit with its weight of logo patches might be an ironic wink too far). A three-piece pinstripe suit nodded toward accessibility but was upstaged by a brown leather hobo coat. The spectacle concluded with a rain of petals, through which Galliano s cast took one final turn before the Pied Piper himself clambered out of that abandoned car and took his bow.
