When you see show notes mentioning a cast including Edie Campbell, Kendall Jenner, Cara Delevingne and Jessica Stam you know stylist Katie Grand’s got to be hovering close-by. No change there for Giles then, and why would there be when the long-time collaboration works so well? The show was set across three gloomy, heavily-scented wood panelled rooms in the old St Martins building in Holborn and the powerhouse that is Grand outdid herself with the production this season, packing out a front row with more it-girls than you could fit in a toilet cubicle at the Box. While her influence was palpable, the overwhelmingly black collection held its own under the lights and a procession of rigid dresses, frothy white high necks with matching cuffs and duchesse satin bows was like something out of a cheese nightmare after a Wolf Hall binge.
Emerging from doorways woven with creeping plants, somewhat hypnotised models floated out scowling and stopped to roll their heads back under the white glow of a domed sky light. By putting the photographers pit in the second, connecting room, the first became charged with clandestine energy. For someone who so famously embraces the power of Instagram, Grand - and indeed, Giles himself - certainly get the importance of intimate, transient experience too. Smirks flickered over black glossy lips, arms were swung wide and eyes swept across the benches fixing on onlookers with a tantalisingly disdainful stare. Here was a truly magical show and one that provided some much needed drama to a rather slow week.
