Very few journalists take notes at fashion shows anymore. Fewer still sketch, with the possible exception of Hamish Bowles, who took in Molly Goddard’s fall show on Saturday.
He’d be wise to ditch pencils for sponges to render her ample, blob-like silhouettes — usually slim on top and bulging out past the hips, but sometimes voluminous on top, too.
The designer, just back from a brief maternity leave, said her first fitting is always crucial, and it’s where her bubble shapes first emerged, setting the template for the collection.
“Pulling in, smashing out — blurriness,” she mused in a backstage scrum after taking the bow with her stylist sister Alice.
The designer opened her show with a shocking pink dress with a plain, trim bodice and an egg-shaped skirt of dense ruffles, cueing up a series of looks that were casual above the waist, and ready-to-party below it.
Despite the strong color palette that included neon brights — and shapes that took cues from 1960s Balenciaga and Dior gowns — everything was worn in an offhand way with two-tone ballerina shoes, the models’ hair loosely tied back. Goddard noted that her double-layer smocks and skirts can be pulled apart “so you’ve got a more wearable wardrobe.”
Loose, bubble-shaped mohair sweaters looked pretty floating over her fluffy tulle skirts, and were among the best looks in the show, which was staged in the main hall of Cecil Sharp House, aka The English Folk Dance and Song Society.
The kookie cowgirl looks, the drab prairie dresses, and the cowboy boots — some of which sprang from items on Goddard’s eBay watchlist — added a country twang that didn’t quite mesh with her pleasing, feminine abstractions.
But there’s little doubt that the western trend that Pharrell Williams introduced at his fall men’s show for Louis Vuitton is gathering steam.
