Duro Olowu always aims to make sharp clothing with a spritz of fun, and this season was no exception.
For fall, the designer drew on childhood memories of his Jamaican and Nigerian relatives living, or just visiting, in London — which is why his collection had a vintage feel. There were oversized, pointy-tipped collars on printed shirts, 1940s skirts with little pleats at the back, and lots of snazzy tailoring borrowed from menswear.
He paired many of those looks with his signature “uncle shoes”: narrow slip-on styles with gold embellishment that he remembers his elegant uncles wearing when he was a child.
Olowu refreshed those retro shapes with bright colors and a vine pattern which he magnified, and shrank for breezy shirtwaist dresses with little pouf shoulders and pleats; tops with dandy-ish bows at the neck; belted coats and culottes. Those prints could be dizzying at times, but they certainly made an entrance.
The tailored pieces were more subdued, but still statement-making. They included a lineup of bouclé beauties including a slim, double-breasted coat worn over a wool shirt with a pointy collar; a black cape that twinkled with paillettes; and a cocoon coat dotted with oversized, animal-print buttons.
The designer took those vintage shapes in other directions, too, whipping up A-line coats with dashes of animal print, and working an embossed black silk and cotton fabric into bolero jackets with tulip sleeves and dresses with flamenco ruffles at the bottom.
The gold brocade capes and devoré velvet trousers were a blend of vintage glamour and the designer’s kaleidoscopic imagination.