London Fashion Week Finds Fun in Teaspoons and Telephone Dials

倫敦時裝周在茶匙和老式電話撥號盤間發現樂趣

茶匙、浴盆、老式電話的撥號盤、打字機、衣服掛鉤、巧克力，這些生活之物，對你我而言，極為尋常，不足為奇；它們卻往往成為時尚設計師的靈感源泉。設計師 Mary Katrantzou 畢業于中央聖馬丁藝術與設計學院，在時尚印花領域，聲名鵲起，被譽為數碼印花皇後。她將茶匙、浴盆和老式電話的撥號盤等符號應用到時尚印花設計中，為本次倫敦時裝周，帶來無盡樂趣。無獨有偶，在服裝配飾界叱　風雲24載的手包設計師 Anya Hindmarch 將巧克力元素巧妙應用到設計之中，奇妙多多。

模特兒展示Mary Katrantzou 在倫敦時裝周的作品

London fashion week may have grown up in recent seasons but it has not lost its sense of fun. That was the message on the catwalks on Tuesday as mundane objects such as typewriters, coat hangers and Quality Street chocolates, took centre stage.

At the Mary Katrantzou show, the designer elevated everyday items to couture status. A print of a bathtub, its foam bubbles made in relief from encrusted pearls, appeared on an Elizabethan-inspired, high-necked silk top. Teaspoons made up the repeat print on a peplum while an old-fashioned rotary telephone dial print decorated a stiff silk cape. Silk trousers completed the look.

As quirky as it all sounds, the result was far from silly. This collection, as Katrantzou explained backstage, was about "celebrating the beauty in the everyday" and "elevating the mundane to the sublime". Hence the prints being realised in the form of peplums, bouncy bustles and chiffon capes. These are cuts borrowed from couture and although the prints may have been unexpected the results were incredible, with the show among the best of the week.

One pencil skirt stood out. Embroidered with hundreds of real yellow HB pencils, this "pencil-pencil" skirt was complemented by a top with the more traditional embellishment of Swarovski crystals. The skirt was embroidered by Lesage, the first time the French haute couture house had worked with a London fashion week designer. Were they surprised by the pencils? "They were very intrigued," said Katrantzou.

Katrantzou, a Central Saint Martins print graduate, is fast gaining a reputation as the queen of digital prints. To execute such mundane inspirations with taste and refinement, rather than with an amateurish nudge-nudge-geddit wink, takes real class. Tuesday's collection highlighted a growing brand with enormous potential. Backstage, international buyers clamoured to congratulate her.

Anya Hindmarch has built an accessories empire over the past 24 years, but this year was her debut show. The handbag designer said she had been thinking about Quality Street chocolates before making a presentation that was camp, theatrical and excellent fun.

The catwalk scene was set up as a Willy Wonka-esque factory. Workers in overalls and Hilda Ogden-style floral headscarves with cigarettes hanging from their mouths served cups of tea before the show began. Ferris wheels turned, conveyor belts with glittery handbags boxed up like Barbie dolls trundled past the front row and clutch bags lit up in the hands of white-gloved puppeteers. As the show ended a curtain dropped to reveal the designer  mad professor-like  cycling on a bike that powered the factory machinery.

This exuberant show  the direct result of Hindmarch appointing a chief executive for the business side of her brand, leaving the designer free to focus on the creative side  ended with conveyor belts tipping thousands of Quality Street chocolates out at the audience, who reacted with childlike glee. "I wanted to capture that sense of excitement," said the designer, "because accessories are all about excitement for me".

（英文信息來自倫敦藝術大學）