This was a tricksily minimalist Sportmax collection with bells on. About two-thirds into the show one of those shiny rose gold bells—which adorned necklaces, earrings, bag straps, and bracelets—tumbled from its designated model and landed at the feet of Isabelle Kountoure, style director of How To Spend It magazine. That minor hardware malfunction apart, this morning’s show was a pretty good advertisement for spending it at Sportmax.
The collection comprised fundamentally familiar pieces desirably differentiated through fabrication, proportion or detail. An opening sleeveless wrap coat with side-seam pockets and its follow-up cream caban were double layered at the collar. Also double-collared were the various long and short takes on the trench with oversized storm flaps that acted as false sleeves. In leather, with chunky silver popper buttons and zips, these seemed biker adjacent. Another outerwear highlight was the full-length coat in panels of shaved baby blue suede whose lapels were wide enough to make a spare coat from.
There was some attractive and vaguely tortured tailoring: strong-shouldered, sometimes sleeveless jackets with oversized, moodily-popped peak lapels. These jackets were either worn over other jackets or sometimes over some of the possibly too many pieces of sheer organza outerwear contained in this collection. We saw lots of silky full-length dresses with quirkily irregular slit details and asymmetrically swooping armholes or cut-outs at the back. Two looks featured baggy pleated washed jeans, both of whose legs were mysteriously arranged to spiral around the left ankle much more acutely than the right. A shift dress and its overlaid organza sheath were both printed with the same orange and black fern, which gave the look that always effective moving image effect.
Bells apart, accessories included soft crescent moon bags in suede with fringed and floral-cut leather decorations plus brassy S-shaped hardware. Footwear featured kitten heeled mules that allowed the models to walk much more freely than many of the show shoes we’ve seen this week. As we strolled out towards Via Piranesi afterwards, Kountoure returned that fugitive bell to its owners backstage.
