LFW AW10: Jonathon Saunders

 

Faux-friggin-pas at Jonathon Saunders this year. Normally, as a believer in fashion Karma, if I have a particularly unpleasant experience or really really just don't like a collection, I keep it to myself. The case of Jonathon Saunders, much like the case of Henry Holland as recorded by my lovely assistant, Saskia, is another example of fashion' s defunct hierarchical stupidity in need of airing out.

Strike 1. Mr. Saunders, on account of his tremendous importance, wouldn't deign to show at Somerset House. The vicinity wasn't good enough either, apparently, since he felt the need to drag tired journos and buyers, some still jet lagged from NYFW, ALL teetering about in heels, through the rain and grimness to bloody Brick Lane. I'm sorry, but when you're spending every free second rushing from various components of W1 to WC1 day after day after day, E1 brashly emblazoned on an invite smacks you in the face as just a tad bit annoying. For Burberry, sure. Lagerfeld, you can take Chanel RTW to the moon and I'd swim through space to get to you if I had to. Jonathon Saunders, not so much. Sure there was the "fashion bus," but, as the English are wont to do, a pick up and drop off point of virtually Liverpool Street Station followed by a fifteen minute hobble does not, in my New York book, ring up as a short hop. 

2) Because of the above, coupled with the delightful rain that seems to perpetually plague LFW (Milan was, sigh, sunny), the venue was mostly empty, with a deserted second row and gaps bigger than those in Bianca Jagger's mouth dotting the first on both sides of the runway.

3) Regardless of such wide availability of seats, the PRs were sticklers, checking each and every ticket of the lone occupier of this row or that, evicting them to row 3 as ticketed if they'd plopped into row 2, making them revert to standing if they'd helped themselves to row 4. It just looked ridiculous, PRs upping and outing soaking and cold patrons who had been willing to make the trek out East (sure Carine Roitfeld showed, but in a chauffeur driven car and umbrella-wielding assistant guiding her to the door), a ring of people standing, hovering around an empty house. Looked pretty silly.

4) As at last the ranks trickled in and show time advanced, the PRs' tune changed and they scrambled to fill said seats lest a photographer get a juicy snap of a deserted Saunders show, said evictees were reinstated, yoyo'd like cattle instead of the press, bloggers and buyers they really were. I had a third row seat, but was called to the front row by a woman wielding a clipboard and a smile. Obligingly, I picked my way out of the bench and plopped down in the empty spot, right at the end of the runway, perfect for clean shooting, and feelings of animosity began to wane. Two minutes later, just as the house lights dimmed, a second PR, who had obviously not been communicating with her colleagues spotted me, squished up her face, demanded to see my ticket after proclaiming that she knew for a fact that I was "not supposed to be in the front row," that I'm not "anywhere near the exclusive list" and that I must go back "whence I came." WOW. A voice from the second row piped up in my defense, but the PR was determined to eradicate this blogger blemish from her front row literally as the first model hit the runway. By then, someone had snagged my original seat. I was about to walk out, when said friendly second rower scooted down, freeing me up a little spot from whence I could watch.

5) Should have left when I had the chance. The collection was dull. Painfully so. It was like Lacoste SS10 meets Nicole Farhi meets my tennis whites wardrobe that I've had since age 8. Didn't someone give Jonathon the memo? IT'S AUTUMN/WINTER we're showing here, and London sure as hell ain't St. Tropez, even in summertime. The sportswear underpinning, seemed out of place with all the luxury retaking to the catwalks this season. And if it's gotta be sports, for winter duds, let's at least reference something snowy and glamorous, like skiwear, instead of summery and sweaty, like jogging.

There were fine white cotton pleated tennis minis, plain black canvas coats branded across the chest with an ugly silver striped, and a few white shifts looked like a woman clad all in white got drunk at the country club and accidentally fell into a wall being repainted blue in her sitting room in the Hamptons House. I was cold just looking at it.

 

  

  

 Maybe he was trying to be Helmut Lang,  but with frumpy cuts hanging off models in a rather unflattering manner, he sure as hell ain't. If the model looks well, not fat, but not her true toothpickishness, why should mere mortals such as ourselves go anywhere near it? There were some cute polka dot prints on pleated (again cotton) A-line skirts, but Orla Kiely produced the EXACT same thing in, oh, I don't know, 2002/3? And there were a cute couple of fringed minis (black and white), too bad Jil Sander got there first--over a year ago. 

 

What's happened to the Saunders of yore, the brilliant designer who made this purple Grecian style chiffon evening gown with architectural print detail? Where be the vibrant colors and splashy prints? And why show such a dull collection in the heart of London's funky East End?

The story ends with me ruining a pair of Louboutins frantically sprinting back down Brick Lane to catch the fashion bus (after all that, the show started nearly an hour late) and, 30 minutes of sitting in traffic on the fashion bus laster, missing my next show.

Minus 10.