Around April or May each year, a curious mood takes hold of London and the people who call it home the moment the thermometer tips above about 18 degrees Celsius. Visit any of the city’s myriad parks and you’ll almost feel drunk on the spirit that floods the city in spring and summer— figuratively speaking, sure, but possibly literally if you lean into British sunny-day drinking habits.
“David Hockney said he would always come back to England to experience the blossoming of spring because it was like Champagne cascading over the landscape,” remarked Daniel Kearns, creative director of Kent Curwen. “English summer just feels like such a precious thing, and it’s something we’re all in awe of.”
The intense, ephemeral experience of British summertime became the source material—or the springboard, at least—for the brand’s latest collection. Kearns’s contemplation couldn’t be more timely—while a distinct autumnal chill may have set in over London Fashion Week, the summer that just passed was one of balmiest on record, with many already looking back on it with wistful, misty-eyed nostalgia. Not only is London just “nice” in the summer, it’s also a time when eyes are opened to the city’s wealth of open-access amenities.
“The places where you experience that most are the Royal Parks,” Kearns said at a preview ahead of the label’s show. “They’re these incredible oases of nature and a respite from the hustle and bustle, but we almost forget they exist until the sun comes out.” Today’s presentation took place in a glass house in Chelsea’s Royal Horticultural Halls, flanked by screens projecting footage of dewy green leaves and sun-dappled ponds. It felt like an attempt to summon the feeling of an amble through one of these urban glades.
The prep formula that has been Kent Curwen’s métier since its founding remained at the heart of this collection, but it felt loosened; less caricature, more real. “The idea was to conjure the sense that these models might be cycling through the park or going to the lido,” Kearns explained, pointing out knitted swim caps and textural one-pieces. A scarlet one-piece came in textural scarlet yarn, with textural rose motifs; another shivered with laser-cut poplin flowers, as if showered with blossoms, a technique also repeated on a polo shirt.
Elsewhere, deck-chair stripes were painted across windbreakers, and puffball skirts in metallic floral jacquards echoed a vision of Hyde Park’s famous rosebushes caught in the high-noon sun. While the collection had a slightly saccharine romance, it felt less blunt in the invocation of its own heritage, echoing a broader appetite for twisted riffs on prep rather than first-degree archetypal takes on it. “That was important for me,” Kearns said. “We know that we stand for cricket sweaters, for rugby shirts, for preppy, but that character has to evolve; to grow up a bit, perhaps.”
At its strongest, the collection spoke to how embedded the vernacular of prep is in London’s unique style culture, and how people integrate it into their wardrobes. “It’s about taking those classic pieces and twisting them. An archetypal shirt or suit jacket can be flipped back to front,” Kearns said, holding up one of the collection’s most distinct looks, a poplin shirt with a reversed collar, its peaks jutting from the nape of the neck. He added, “I think it almost looks a bit like the swans on the Long Water at Kensington Gardens.”
