London Fashion Week: Gareth + Giles

For reasons too odd to explain but involving an old brewery, a circus, a brick lane and a fairy princess who helped me navigate between them, I found myself having a pre-Giles Deacon dinner with London's hottest designer, Gareth Pugh, and Richard Mortimer, the founder of the red-hot London club, BoomBox. (This, dear Portfolio reader, may not mean anything to you but when I tell my hairdresser -- another Gareth, this one at Harvey Nichols -- I'll have to make sure he's not holding shears lest he stab me in a jealous rage.) We'd all just been to the Fashion East show and we had a nice natter about how Henry Holland, who showed at Fashion East, had progressed beyond the fashion insider t-shirts which made him famous and pondered what would become of his price points. We also wondered how a designer who'd been showing for ten years got a spot on the up-and-comers catwalk. After dinner Richard gave me a copy of the limited-edition BoomBox book -- the reason for the extra ultra fabulous BoomBox bash this week.

Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans took snaps and the book features contributions of BoomBox regulars including Paul Flynn, Charlie Porter, Hanna Hanra, Katie Grand, and Lauren Cochrane. There are only 1200 copies going on sale priced £45 each, available from exclusively at MAC, Dover Street Market, Colette in Paris, Seven New York in NYC, Side By Side in Tokyo, and 10 Corso Como in Milan. Or, move fast, and you can win one today in the Time Out competition.

At the Giles show, I was late enough to score a front row seat (that happens sometimes, don't ask why) across from Gareth. The clothes were amazing -- intricate and beautifully constructed. Much softer than what we have seen from Deacon in the past, despite the decapitated Bambi print. One of the highlights for me was watching Gareth watch the clothes. He wasn't looking at them the way a journalist might, but you could almost see him deconstructing them in his mind as they went by.

The strength of the collection is also a tribute to Katie Grand, who has been Giles's stylist forever. She's taking the top post at Mulberry soon, but I doubt that will stop her from working with Deacon. More likely, we'll just see the Mulberry and Giles collaborations continue. And the BoomBox parties, of course.