As I rushed out of the runway show that served as the presentation of PPQ’s Spring/Summer 2014 collection (that closed the first day of London Fashion Week) and braved the heavy rain that awaited me, I could not help but think that never did the miserable meteorological conditions that enveloped a fashion event matched my mood so adroitly. In a nutshell, PPQ’s latest collection (the brainchild of design duo Amy Molyneaux and Percy Parker) could not have disappointed me more than what it did.
I am all for reinterpretations of trends past, particularly when they are done in an intelligent manner that can (sometimes with high doses of humour) question the notions of taste, inspiration and creativity. However, PPQ’s clothes for Spring/Summer 2014 merely rehashed 1980s silhouettes in a process that relied on creating pastiche versions of the worst sartorial creations that the decade had to offer. The runway show was, in a fact, a succession of failed designs that had me wishing for a quick end, even if that meant facing the merciless elements outside.
If the combination of colours such as bright yellow, orange, green and purple against black and floral patterns intended to be ironic and indicative of bold aesthetic choices, it did not succeed. Instead, it proved to be a clumsily unsavoury and inadequately directional mishmash only made worse by the attempt to underpin the excessive layering of taffetas, silks and details such as ruffles, bows and large gold sequins and buttons with a superficially gothic proclivity. Cliché shapes such as peplums on skirts and dresses with mullet trains only accentuated an overwhelmingly uncoordinated unsightliness that had me wondering that having the large amounts of money needed to produce a collection and the runway show to display it does not make the sartorial nous of its makers worth of being on the official schedule of a major fashion week.