Hey Luxury Lovers! A note before we start: for SS27 Conner Ives did not show in London. He took the collection to New York on Saturday 12 September for his debut there, in the Pool Room at The Grill in the Seagram Building — the Philip Johnson room built around its own pond, which he had wanted for years. The collection is called Across the Pond, and yes, the pun is deliberate.
Fish, water lilies and a slogan
He researched it at the American Museum of Fly Fishing, which he called “the most incredible market research I think I have ever done.” Hence fish-motif dresses, and a washed lilac sweatshirt over a hand-painted skirt with chiffon gills fluttering off it.
Then the evening pieces: a bias-cut gown in Clorox blue appliquéd with three-dimensional water lilies and pads, a sea-foam green bias dress, a black lace dress with a flounced hem, and a red satin bodysuit with gold embroidery over a plain white tank. His reworked vintage tees came with punched-out holes and smocking, and one new slogan: Bring Back Shame.
The styling
Fur-trimmed smoking jackets, macramé-fringed shawl dresses, electric pink feather boas, and a second menswear outing with suiting over geometric cummerbunds — scarves tied as cummerbunds and cravats, from a collaboration with Gieves & Hawkes of Savile Row. Iris Law, Lila Moss, Hari Nef and Dominique Jackson walked.
“Flamboyance and passion are inherently American traits,” he said. Darling, he is not wrong.
My verdict
Still the most quietly radical designer of his generation — everything built from what already exists. The lilac and sea foam palette is the one I will be copying come spring.
Runway photographs: Vogue Runway.
See every look on Vogue Runway →
Luxury Mummy xo
