GILES | SPRING / SUMMER 2012

Dramatic, fantastical and enchanting; Giles Deacon, previously awarded ‘British Designer of the Year’, debuted his Spring / Summer 2012 collection in a show that was as mesmerizing as it was current. Hosted at the Royal Courts of Justice, models paraded the runway that was set against a dramatic backdrop of a kryptonite-effect installation, epitomising the drama of the Spring / Summer 2012 collection whilst complimenting its soft hues and romantic delicacy.

Opening the show with a sleek white silk suit inspired by YSL’s 1960’s smoking jacket, worn with a dramatic white-feathered swan headpiece, Giles established the tone of his SS12 collection. Creating an antithesis between the exquisite materials, intricate detailing and fantasy world belonging to haute couture, with a modern simplicity that can only be accredited to ready-to-wear, Giles achieved perfect equanimity between the two. An array of marabou feathers, layered chiffon, diamond embellishment and billowing silks in romantic greys, pinks and whites were contrasted with harsh metallic, blood red prints and fringed leather.

Romantic shapes reminiscent of Dior’s ‘flower girls’ found contrast against the twenty-first century functionality of clean lines and simple separates, often working the two together in metallic 50’s shaped dresses with plunging necklines.

Amongst all this, Giles incorporated a nod to the east with a series of sheer separates detailed with red Japanese inspired floral embroidery and billowing printed silk Kimono’s. With an elegance to the show captured in the swan headpieces, Giles simultaneously achieved a soft and extravagant romanticism, whilst assuring the audience of his cutting edge, twenty-first century functionality.

- Jessica Beck