LONDON FASHION WEEK - Giles Deacon revisits his student days
With a cacaphony of shrieking sound that would make a rave seem as quiet as a tea party, Giles Deacon, 39, set out to revisit his student youth.
"It's 20 years since I graduated from Saint Martin's and I wanted to think back to that time," said Deacon, to explain the screaming sound track and the punk nature of clothes, which had safety pins inserted as decoration into tailoring and stiff, lampshade skirts with vicious spikes and studs. Set off with picture hats, the outfits mostly seemed weird. A typical example was the opening outfit of flannel sheath with giant gorilla-like arm coverings infested with chains.
Hidden within the dissonant chaos were some of the grownup clothes for which Deacon is known - especially an elegant silk dress with a print of fly fishing or a pair of perfectly cut slouchy pants sitting on the hips. The injection of "real" people on the runway (which is a concept older than punk) made this show an ode to the awkward.
But didn't Deacon mistake the mood? Apart from the doubtful wisdom of looking back at your own oeuvre when still so comparatively young, the recent fashion school graduates who have been exploring the 1980s on the London runways did not live through that era. And they might not have yet have grasped that it is tough to build a business by creating a logo that looks like Chanel's double C's and showing skirts with chunks of crystal embellishment that would challenge any woman to sit down.
Deacon has developed a distinct look - an adult couture sensibility. Perhaps he felt that he had to bolster that, to compete with young designers screen-grabbing studs and sharp shoulders from 1980s images. But one of fashion's most important tenets is to believe in yourself as well as to mirror current society. Beauty and grace with a modern edge, which previously seemed to be Deacon's goal, are needed more than ever in troubled times.
suzy menkes, iht.com