Romance Was Born designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales have dipped into their bottomless surplus of influences for Autumn Winter 2012 presenting an inventive, bold collection while toning down the decadent costume-y aesthetic of past seasons. To use a cringey buzzword, the new range shows a new maturity in the label. On first glance it’s immediately clear that this is a much less showy collection than the Romance Was Born of the past, but what is really impressive about this collection is in the finer details and precise execution.
Note the perfect pleats circling the hem of a prim plaid shirt dress, the hugely ambitious piecework in denim and shearling, the all-over ruching in jewel toned metallics, and the finest tailoring we’ve seen from the label to date. Prints feature heavily, many of which have a painterly quality – quite literally. From Impressionistic watercolours to fiery abstract oils, beautiful Koons-like modernist graphics, patchwork, splashy Rorschach abstraction, and giant owls.
The overtly spectacular show pieces have been limited to just two (see bottom of page) but the move toward workable, wearable clothes is just another sign of the label’s evolving maturity. Great stuff.
View Photos Via Harper’s BAZAAR
Title Image by Ryan Pierse via Getty
