You possibly can hear a Duro Olowu presentation earlier than you see it. Strolling up the steps to the house he borrowed from a good friend to point out his garments this season—the interiors a maximalist riot of patterns and prints wholly befitting Olowu’s personal eye for clashing extremes—you could possibly hear the peals of laughter echoing down the hall because the designer regaled the assembled crowd of editors with the tales behind every bit. “Typically individuals say, how come we find yourself laughing a lot at these previews?” Olowu added. “Effectively, I feel should you’re not laughing, you’re not having enjoyable.”
If there was an operative phrase inside Olowu’s spring assortment, it was actually enjoyable—however whereas there are many appears to be like to place a smile in your face, the technical rigor behind every bit isn’t any laughing matter. A trio of tailor-made opening outfits in a blazing sunflower yellow—a trench coat minimize simply so on the calf, and a pair of pantsuits, one roomy, one cinched—had been cleverly configured to be blended and matched at will. A Nineteen Twenties-inspired coat and a collection of separates and swishy clothes featured an particularly beautiful striped print that Olowu likened to the endpapers you would possibly discover in Victorian books, patchworked in contrasting colours and meticulously seamed collectively on the diagonals the place the factors of the bias meet. “I needed that familiarity however nonetheless that strangeness,” mentioned Olowu. “It’s about taking a fragile sample and making it fairly daring.”
There was a lot extra boldness to come back: multi-print bias clothes with ravishing clashes of romantic florals and geometric block prints, or with ruffled trims on the sleeves; knee-length coats with kick flare black slub silk trousers poking out from beneath to bounce across the fashions’ ankles; boxy duster coats with playful polka-dot buttons; and an particularly dazzling jacket minimize from a wild mixture of gold lamé, chenille, and raffia. “I needed every bit to really feel like its personal dwelling, pulsating factor,” Olowu mentioned.
As all the time, nonetheless, look a little bit nearer—past the kaleidoscopic mish-mash of florals and polka-dots and rowdy prints—and each element was rooted in Olowu’s obsession with practicality. The hoodies he launched final season proved to be a shock hit amongst his artwork world-adjacent clientele, and so they made a return right here, styled with nothing however a pair of sandals. A supremely elegant tackle a bomber jacket, that includes exactly minimize bell sleeves, is prone to be this season’s best-seller, and the dressed-up-but-laid-back look of a sleeveless, paneled tuxedo jacket and trousers was so profitable it elicited a pointy consumption of breath from the assembled editors. “It’s about turning it down, however revving it up,” the designer mentioned. If anybody can translate that seemingly paradoxical sentiment into lovely garments, it’s Olowu.
