Any luxury designer planning to launch a diffusion range ought to look to Preen Line for a model. Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi do yeoman s work distilling the ideas they ve explored in catwalk collections and interpolating them into clothes that aren t just more accessibly priced than mainline Preen, but more youthful, utilitarian, and casual as well. Preen Line is like Preen s knockabout younger sister.
Thornton and Bregazzi executed that formula particularly well this season, turning out a lot of tomboyish looks, such as updated tracksuits and printed or embroidered motorcycle jackets. The bikers and the tartan here carried a strong whiff of Fall, but the garments themselves were convincing, and they worked nicely with the patchworked Army-inspired pieces, the collection s bolt of cobalt, and its painterly peony print. Though very pretty, that peony print had a toughness to it that made it interesting. There were also some straightforwardly pretty, quite feminine looks here, but what made this outing work was its atmosphere of rough-and-tumble.
