By the end of fashion week the general sense of fatigue and bench-induced shoulder cramps have, let’s be honest, overtaken any real burning love for clothes. That’s why it’s such a treat to have Marques’Almeida on the last day because you know you have something to look forward to – and what a treat we had in store for us this season. Glimmering like a scrunched up fistful of Quality Street wrappers this collection was a triumph of new textures and shapes. Embroidered tapestry trousers wrapped around legs and hung split at the bottom, a soft, deconstructed fur coat in delicious, gloomy lilac was the perfect antidote to London’s scruffy shearling obsession and the pair of cropped red jeans that you never knew you couldn’t live without were just a few strokes of genius from a truly inspired collection.
Their interest in innovative, unusual fabrications was manifest in crumpled coated leather foils used on a bold, glimmering silver jacket and to freshen the heaviness of richly embroidered fabric elsewhere. A bustier in pink, magenta and orange was all kinds of sultry elegance, while damp hair, kohl rimmed eyes and white mascara kept everything fresh and everything absolutely Marques’Almeida. Set to a soundtrack of one of their muses, Bjork, this was a majestic demonstration of aptitude from designers perhaps too often pigeonholed as having made denim trendy again. In reality, they’re setting their own trends and then breaking and re-defining them every season. What a joy to behold.