Day two at LCM and for the AW14 season James Long’s collection excels. Long has been inspired by primitive sci-fi and cosplay – the fantastical world of costume play – to create a collection of strict futurism and abstraction.
Prior to the show starting, David Bowie again features and becomes the catwalk intro du jour and then – bang! – we are catapulted straight into Long’s mix and match futuristic atmosphere and this somewhat galactic journey is speedy, wondrous and more than pleasing to the audiences’ eye.
All of London’s modern, on-trend and innovative designers have been playing around with textures and quilted fabrics for a few seasons now and we are finding they are becoming a staple fabrication that will run through large sections of varied collections. This aside, no one has yet executed it with such expertise and seamlessness as Long did today. The panelled sweatshirts and quilted outerwear pieces are beautiful and married perfectly with the dark indigo and black denim pieces finishes the looks perfectly.
To create Long’s futuristic habitat he has adorned models with slicked back cobalt blue hair and sticks to a strict palette of deep indigo and blacks. With not a knitwear piece in sight, Long has really matured as a designer offering a collection that thrills and is yet highly commercial. The finished aesthetic reminds us of ’80s Formula One outfits set against a dystopian and metallic Blade Runner backdrop.
The collection builds to a strict whole with its own inherent rules – there are no shirts and colours rarely stray from blue, white, black , red and grey. Once again music has been specially written and performed by Simon Milner of Is Tropical. A great collection full of commercial and back-to -back must-have pieces.
Key items:
– Panelled sweatshirts
– Quilted outerwear
– Navy basket weave nylon
– Grey and navy felted trousers
– Signature racing-car driver colours and styling
by Calvin Baillie