If there was an award for the most climatic and thematically apt place at London Fashion Week this season, the Knwls area would definitely be up there. At their program tonight, designers Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault were provided the run of the old Central Saint Martins structure in Holborn, which has actually laid inactive because 2011, the previous class gathering dust. As a soundtrack of krautrock and Swedish grunge started blasting from the speakers, flakes of falling apart plaster were shaken from the ceiling as if a sleeping giant was rekindling. And while it was the Charing Cross school down the roadway that technically played host to the school’s famous style program (of which Knowles and Arsenault are likewise graduates, although they studied there after the college transferred to its glossy brand-new school in King’s Cross), there was still a sense of the specters of style history going back to haunt its passages when again.
Not least due to Knowles’s and Arsenault’s determination to admire a few of their heroes, a number of whom when studied in the now-cobwebbed spaces they displayed in– at a sneak peek visit, they rattled a broader list of designers from Azzedine Alaïa to John Galliano. “We were taking a look at what style utilized to be, and what it ended up being when we began, and where it’s now going– and where we wish to choose it,” stated Arsenault. Added Knowles, “It seems like an extremely classy area. And this season feels rather classy to me.”
Classy it was, however it still maintained that signature high-octane Knwls energy and grit. Designs strutted and vamped and twirled in an opening series of looks that showcased the duo’s exceptional corsetry abilities– deforming dealt with leathers into artfully cinched and strapped waists, or gray terry tracksuits changed into cropped hoodies and swishy, high-waisted trousers– along with their deft hand for a predisposition cut, whether in delicately-printed slip gowns with tendrils of material fluttering behind as the designs strolled, or a series of more ladylike dress, consisting of one that was embroidered with flower beading. (But still sheer: this is the Knwls female, after all.)
When it comes to that sense of sophistication? There was the spirited touch of a series of helmet-like leather fascinators, hovering over designs’ heads like a beetle’s carapace. (The hats were made by the famous milliner Stephen Jones, who came backstage last season to present himself to the designers and let them understand he was a fan of their work.) Somewhere else, the duo discovered themselves recalling to the golden era of couture, with coats including kindly proportioned shoulders that referenced Balenciaga’s cocoon coat, or collected crepe gowns that took their hints from Madame Grès. “It’s a twist on her design, however,” Arsenault warned, lest we take the contrast too actually. “It’s in cleaned materials, and tight and revealing, and made with liquid jerseys and florals and spliced-up gowns and these Alaia-inspired hooded gowns, so it’s more of a twist on her design.”
In a last nod to the style greats there was a bridal aim to close the program– once again seen sideways,