Melting Colours

There's a throbbing vibrancy of colour dancing its way through S/S 11, a backlash to a sea of beige that of course makes me all giddy and excited for next season, but there's a careful balancing act that I've noticed where the strong colour palette has been contained and restricted into a boxed-in simplicity of form or whatever code of subtleties the designer chooses to partake in.  Marani, who has been making quiet treads with his beautiful work has struck this balance in his latest collection.  Yes, there's colour but in its gradiated and slightly faded form and with the emphasis not just on palette but on excellent fabrication as well as a simple shape, it's tempered and in a way, the colours, inspired by Francis Upritchard's art work as well as Zwelethu Mthethwa's photography, therefore shines more.

Actually, from Mthethwa's photograph, the background of green rushes and long grasses informed the lookbook shot by Mel Bles.  Sadly Marani hasn't made the actual trip to Africa but a park haven in Paris apparently still takes you pretty far away in spirit…

The lushness of Mthethwa's photograph combined with the colour semblances of Upritchard's sculptural work means plenty of serene colour combinations in the collection which also utilises different levels of opacity to get the colours looking just so… as well as catching the light perfectly…

I've noticed a small influx of sage green this season and here it pops up as though some pigment from moss had rubbed onto a t-shirt along with pollen from flowers at the bottom of the knit on the right…

Any indication of a photographic print is worked in subtly…

This wasn't in the lookbook but I loved the addition of a what I think is a 'summer shearling' – windbreaker-light, slightly deconstructed and rugged, and with a removable collar that has great plasticised wrinkled texture on one side…

This sort of wrinkled texture is worked into the knitwear – apparently this metallicised effect was a bit of a happy accident…

The duality of Upritchard's work where figures are split from side-view is also incorporeated into some of the pieces where front and back have different facets…