SPECTRAL and beautiful, non-binary queer-luxury fashion label Art School returned to LFWM to showcase their SS20 collection, Modern Nature.
Moving away from last year’s collection (relaxed, clashing colours), creative directors Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt approached this year with grown-up glamour in a neutral colour palette. In reference to queer icon and English film director Derek Jarman’s collection of 1991 diary entries, entitled Modern Nature, the collection uses his description of rubbish washed up onto the shingle by the sea as a springboard to creation.
The pieces included floor-length sequined dresses, suggesting the shimmer from broken glass bottles and rusty metal which Jarman found on a beach near his house. The show begins with models draped in white and silver, reflecting the natural light of the BFC Showspace, before phasing into black garments.
Models wore contacts to convey an overall vision of haunting beauty – Art School describes the desired effect to create ‘queer deities’. The other-worldly voice and music of English singer songwriter Anna Calvi, performing live to accompany the show, only adds to this illusion.
The music boomerangs from soft and slow acoustic to heavier, louder rock. Matching the tempo, models change from floating lithely past spectators to marching furiously and in one case stumbling, as if undead.
The show was, as always, a celebration of the unique, and evidence that Art School are still one of the most exceptional designing talents.
by Alicia Pountney