LFW AW10: Eun Jeong

At lonnnnnnnnng last I have reached the end of my LFW backlog of images, texts, yellowing press releases and the like. And on the final day of Paris Fashion Week, just to remind me that, while the fashion circus may be looking to packing up its tents and other assorted hijinx, the work for little ol delinquent me has just begun. Cue frantic photo editing on le Eurostar.

LFW AW10 ended sort of where it all began for me, with Eun Jeong showing at the BFC tent. At my very first ever LFW, which now seems like a lifetime ago, I covered her turn at Fashion Fringe in my first ever report for the Financial Times (first piece of fashion writing I ever published!) and then was denied tickets to her subsequent upgrade shows at the BFC thereafter.  This season, they sent me four. My my how the time flies.

This season, Jeong ventured outside the all-white paper-shredding aesthetic that won her the coveted prize of Covent Garden way back in September 2009 and experimented with her darker side. Ahh, experimentation, the do or die of any designer just starting out, the desperate scramble to deem oneself versatile and clutch at more than just 15 minutes of catwalk fame.

Despite the fact that the white-washed charm of her first collection, "Go By a Secret Path," was what propelled her to the mainstage (she had an entire window at Selfridges to her young designer self), after seeing her last collection which was naught but a more thought out recreation of the later, I was worried that the diamond in the tissue-paper fabric shredded and bustled bundles was a one trick pony.

So this season, at last Jeong got rid of the white out and gave us some color. Black, first and foremost--a natural direction for the color-blind designer to gingerly persue, and then, bolder and bolder until red concoctions cropped up, and then rounding off with a return to her signature tattered white creations.

Whilst experimentation is always to be applauded, the trouble with Eun this particular season was, look after look of playing with various cuts of a
more simplistic, clean and modern nature, black minis bustled, mingled textiles and flounced skirts shrouded in a myriad of asymmetrical layers of fabric, it all started to look very much the same, very  quickly.

Even her foray into red, which visibly popped on the runway after the black-on-black mini brigade, had that feeling of one pattern being cut and recut over and over rather than an organic evolution of shape and style stemming from a place of innovative design. It even had that feeling of being rushed, like a brief from Project Runway to make as many different yet same looks from one massive hunk of red wool.

In the end, despite a rockin live performance from Eliza Doolittle and her band (the last of her £100,000 from Fashion Fringe perhaps?), the collection seemed to bear the unmistakable mark of "young designer," experimenting with experimentation as it is taught in a classroom, and not from an organic place of inspiration. The collection was entitled "Forgotten Story," too bad the name foreshadowed the designs.

The best part of the show? The ultra-funky yet wearable   printed soled geometric metallic wedged booties teamed with adorable printed tights that accompanied each look, the only actual reference to the "children's book" influence allegedly underpinning the collection.

Also intriguing, enormous crystal embellished neck and back pieces worn shrugged over an evening dress here, or multi-layered black onion of an ensemble there. The styling options with this one are endless, as long as it is indeed, as it appeared to be, its own accessory of an entity.