Back Catalogue

>> Short term memory is a bit of epidemic in fashion. Labels coming and going all the time, the mounting heap of collections and the basic cycle of things going in and out. There’s a chasm of difference between the time when I first started going to London Fashion Week back in 2006 and what it is now. And that’s just a mere eight years (or is eight years considered a lifetime and my perspective on time is marred by my refusal to believe that this blog will soon be a DECADE old?). Going to pop into Roksanda Ilincic’s swanky store tomorrow on Mount Street and remember a time when I had to beg former London PR queen Mandi Lennard for a standing spot at her early shows. Weird.

The same goes for looking at Ann Sofie-Back‘s Back line lookbook. Her shows in London for her mainline got me all hot and bothered at one point. Then she stopped showing in London and moved back to her native Stockholm. Her mainline became a couture-based Atelje. Back began to concentrate on her role as creative director at Cheap Monday and on her Back line and I believe Atelje has gone on momentary hiatus for now. Cue memories of a wave of hype over an Ann Sofie-Back show in London circa 2008? It’s weird to even be feeling nostalgia for a show that’s only a few years old but that’s how quickly things move I guess. A lasting and astute business though is far better than hype and Back has certainly built that up, primarily from her ever-strong secondary Back line. To call it diffusion would be a mistake.  Back’s specific viewpoint of distorting conventions of beauty and injecting humourous or ironic touches into her work, is definitely evident in Back.  For A/W 14-5 she plays with materials and proportions in a way that is probably familiar to us through the established output of labels like Acne or even J.W. Anderson to some extent.  Except Back comes at it with a back catalogue of styling and design work that informs her particular penchant for “awkward” dressing.  She’s made it all the more palatable by piggy-back-ing (geddit?) on to recent waves of logomania.  Back may be her name but emblazoned on an elastic waistband or trapped in a plastic window on a sweatshirt, it can double up as its original English meaning word.  These are workhorse pieces – things that you’ll pull out more often than not.  The even better news is that her e-store is up and running, and the likes of ASOS stock a good selection of the line.  I had my flashback to Back in Hong Kong’s Liger and in Tokyo’s Sister, so stockist support seems strong.

Her current SS 14 Back collection is mostly available through her comprehensive e-store.  My top picks include the biker jacket with an oversized belt, any of the knotted netting stuff and the leather skirts and shorts with elasticated boxer waistbands.  Plus, it’s always fun to punch in SEK prices into currency converters and watch the numbers decrease.