Christopher Kane got ensnared by the neon-trimmed beat of a city not too dissimilar from his home city this season, and gave AW16 some extra special flair by thrusting a JG Ballard Crash-esque motif into the whole scenario.
Positioning himself somewhere in-between his Mount Street base in Mayfair and the more trendy avant-garde tactics that London menswear excels in, Kane championed a kind of hectic-suited look which made all the right statements.
Navy dominated the collection and mingled heavily among zig-zag neons and disorderly patterned knits with intarsia accents while high-vis was contrasted with dark denim.
Shapes and structures where loosely based around the costume of the driver enthusiast, just, and rather macabrely, post-highway collision it seemed. This became even more explicit when Kane adopted the visual annihilation that is the sculpture work of John Chamberlain as his own, transferring images of collided, crumpled and distorted cars on printed sweaters and tees.
As stylishly clamorous as this made the collection as a whole, Kane made it clear that if he is going to do menswear and do it well, his input must be completely untouched. This was the kind of menswear that reminds you why Kane still deserves due respect for being one of London’s most perceptive and still excited designers.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Christopher Kane