MIKHAEL KALE | SPRING / SUMMER 2013

Showing for the first time at London Fashion Week Canadian designer Mikhael Kale presented his Spring / Summer 2013 collection via a static exhibition alongside a supporting short film at the London Film Museum.

With a cast of windswept models placed motionlessly in the eerie underground space, the highly conceptual and equally stylized collection made a strong statement while giving off an otherworldly and almost lifeless air.

The inspiration behind Kale’s collection came from artist Nigel Scott and his reflective work entitled ‘Conversations With Blue’. The art series looked back at the three years of Scott’s life in which he cut himself off from the rest of the world after losing his last living relative. Scott spent those days catching waves and building an emotional connection with the ocean.

The artist’s self-inflicted hibernation and relationship with his surf board and the water is clearly reflected in Kale’s collection. Lace was layered over striking tie-dye prints and bluey greens which communicated the shades and depths of the ocean. Elsewhere, painstaking beadwork and sequins echoed the sun and moonlight reflecting of the water’s surface and black mesh overlays nodded to fishermen’s nets and seaweed.

Tailoring was an important staple of the Kale Spring / Summer 2013 offering; heavy ruffles flowed down the bottom of a fitted lace dress and was almost reminiscent of crustaceans or the fins of an elegant sea-dwelling creature.

Multipurpose outerwear was worn either as formal jackets or more casual loose-fitting capes. Although, this season marked the designer’s first attempt at exploring print, he mastered the technique beautifully and captured the call of the ocean with an effortless seduction.

- Ellen Stewart
- Photos courtesy of Mikhael Kale