Analysing Recent Collections (Jacquemus, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy & Helmut Lang)

Though the times be tough, Charles Jeffrey and his Loverboy people put on a big, noisy, all-singing, all-dancing takeover in the courtyard of Somerset House for his 10th anniversary. Beth Ditto was doing the singing—belting out Patti Smith’s “Gloria” with back-up, from a balcony, by the Somerset House choir—while Jeffrey’s madcap band of friends skipped, whirled, and chucked rose petals. “Ultimately, we’re about creating joy, I think,” Jeffrey had said earlier.Madcap, literally: everything from animal-eared beanies to giant baker-boy caps, balaclavas and bicornes, Peter Pan nightcaps, and paper hats rendered in felt. Then, to top it off, a Tower of London crenelated castle, a big shredded bin-bag busby, and Erin O’Connor wearing a horned head-dress in the shape of a computer game character. “I find animism and queerness are very interlinked,” Jeffrey remarked. Oversized beanies have turned out to be his breakout cult item—you see teenagers slouching at bus-stops in them all over London. That’s some kind of accolade, considering these little neo-grungers were just starting nursery when Jeffrey was beginning to design years ago. “I want to kind of remind people to dream, and go back into that kind of alternative reality,” he said.Props to him: at the beginning, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy’s rambunctious performances pioneered gender fluidity in fashion internationally; just the sort of thing that burnishes London’s reputation for producing outrageous, exuberant politically-pointed