Giles!

LONDON, February 15, 2007 – Giles Deacon has always been a nature-lover, and after a few virtual flying expeditions via Google Earth, he was off on his Fall theme. It came to encompass earthy forest-floor colors, porcupine quills, leaves, tribal prints, Chinese pheasant feathers, and, along the way, a showpiece constructed of fans that may be fashion’s first-ever dress based on a sea cucumber.

As always in a Giles collection, though, the starting point is never where things end up. “We just add and add and go mad, and we got on a real roll this time,” was the best explanation he had for the anti-method that produced a duchesse satin gown jigsawed together from 550 pattern pieces, a leather sheath decorated with grommets, gargantuan knitwear, a coq-feather bolero, and a puffy ball gown sprouting extravagant tail feathers.

It makes for an expansive show with links that are perplexing to follow, until you realize that none really exist. Deacon’s increasingly complex, handworked clothes are best considered individually, just as they are rendered in his studio, with prints and embroideries, corsetry, and padding applied by a small army of friends. No big thrusting vision, then; but a sense that a jolly good time was had by all who made it.