We learn a little more about the loved Christopher Kane at his SS16 Womenswear show through his autobiographical principles.

Destruction and Repair

Close to Christopher Kane’s heart and largely autobiographical, as in other seasons, the SS16 Crash and Repair collection focuses on the designer and his sister, Tammy, through a certain turbulent period in their lives. It looks into the cyclical process of damage and repair – the way that we go through a certain troubling and psychological pressing time in our lives to then pick up the pieces and build something new out of it. The collection draws upon this psychological damage and reproduces it in the material sense – “there is the idea of creating coming from that destruction, that repair making something new”. It’s one of those things that struck a chord in the audience’s perception of the collection, and because we can all relate to the hardships that life sometimes brings, Crash and Repair becomes symbolically significant this week.

New Primitivism

If using painful experiences and restructuring them into something more meaningful and beautiful was on Christopher’s mind when he designed this collection then Wonderland isn’t surprised that he has also implemented elements of New Primitivism this season. John Chamberlain’s ‘car crash’ sculptures help illuminate the stream-of-consciousness feel to the collection, with themes being revisited in very dreamlike and subconscious ways. It balanced metamorphosing bacterial blobs and x-ray scan garments, and then some lace garments that echoed fractures and crashes. Kane wanted “childlike and honest” and this is exactly what he produced – a season of untouched and untainted pieces that come together at the end.

There are no rules to Fashion

Yes the Christopher Kane runway girl has seen way too much in life and she might not be an insider to the nature of fashion, but she still means a lot. She represents individuality and freedom, a kind of unfaltering sense of dedication to the outsider experience that has shaped her to such a large extent. Disruption and decoration come hand in hand and dichotomies such as these make us question the standards and rules of life. Fake or real, structured or disorientated, jelly or plastic, nothing stopped Kane from presenting his experiences in the most genuine and honest way this season.

Words: Marianna Mukhametzyanova