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Show Report

Show Report: Sibling S/S 16 Menswear

by Lou Stoppard on 14 June 2015

Lou Stoppard reports on the Sibling S/S 16 menswear show.

Lou Stoppard reports on the Sibling S/S 16 menswear show.

Day two of LC:M ended on a bum note. Literally. Sid Bryan, Joe Bates and Cozette McCreery of Sibling know how to do spectacle - be that with giant red human-size pompoms or sickly sweet pink knit teddies, as with past seasons - and for S/S 16 they proved that despite London's reputation for being a daring city, where rules are made to be broken, you can still elicit an audible gasp from a UK front row. How did they do it? With cheek. Cheek in two senses of the word. One literal - they’d bared models behinds with trousers and joggers that framed the buttocks with jock straps, while revealing a good few inches of swelling butt cleavage through a cutout (ass on the runway can still shock, it seems). The other attitude based, through the clever, witty, playful but political subversiveness the Sibling trio have become known for. This season they turned their sartorial-cum-social commentary to an American teen trope - the jock.

The show truly lulled us into a false sense of security. The opening modish suits, made in collaboration with Savile Row’s Edward Sexton and featuring a flash of coloured lace-up detailing, firmly suggested this show was about a new direction for Sibling. But just as jocks tend to be goody two-shoes in front of mum and dad and their headmaster, then feral, sexed-up, boisterous bullies when around their peers or when ruling their sports pitch stomping ground, the show had a whole other side that was all together more naughty. Sibling had used knit techniques to trace their boy’s muscles - thick sporty laces had been woven together into elaborate shoulder pads and even a corset. Colours were manic - bold neons that complimented the cartoon, preppy stripes and swirls. This jock’s mascot? Mycroft, Sibling’s dog, who appeared on sweaters and hoodies.

One wondered vaguely if this was the ultimate misfit revenge - they made a spectacle of the jock in the way, at school, those burly sporty bullies made a spectacle of the kind of arty, outsider boys that often grace the Sibling runway. They’d toyed with his masculinity, made a cartoon of his muscles, fetishised his form and turned him into a walking taking Ken doll. It’s said that fashion is full of people who were bullied at school, so maybe that’s why the chance to gawp, giggle and leer at the jocks (albeit while admiring some fine fashion) elicited such a rapturous response.

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