Unexpectededly Nokified

>> I'm all for fashion houses and labels being upfront about their numerous collaborations behind the scenes.  I feel like a broken record when I say that behind the collections at most major houses and brands, that beyond the work of the creative directors who we focus all our attentions on, there's always a bigger team who don't often get the credit/applause they deserve unless it's we're talking about exceptional circumstances (the atelier staff of Dior for instance coming out to take their bow at the last show in March).  I also love an unexpected collaboration between wee independent individual and super big houses.  Remember Rita Saardi's flowers for Nina Ricci's collection a few seasons back? 

This one here, between Dr Noki and Chloe sounds even more unlikely on paper.  If you're not familiar with Dr. Noki's work, have a gander at a Google Image search and you get the idea.  Take a look at Dr Noki's website and you might even be a little confused.  The main take-away point is that Dr Noki has been dissecting vintage clothes and fabrics for over a decade, refashioning pieces into sustainable pieces before sustainability was even a hot topic.  For Chloe's A/W 11-12 collection, Dr Noki took sustainable yarn created from disused/unwanted vintage fabrics and stitched it into a poncho, onto some of the bags and also onto forest green jumper, a piece which I thought was going to veer the collection into something more multi-dimensional than the mono snakeskin note but it was just the one piece.  Weirdly enough during the show, when these pieces came out, I did wonder why it looked a little out of step (in a good way) with the rest of the collection – now I know why.  It's slightly unfortunate that Dr Noki's handiwork was seen in a collection which, has resulted in question marks over Hannah MacGibbon's future at the house rather than a focus on the clothes…

Still, publicised or not, it's remarkable to see a house like Chloe working with subversive fashion figures like Dr Noki…

(Detail images from Vogue.com)

For next season, Dr Noki has turned to noir for his own collections in a menswear collection entitled 'Pour Dandy' (a word play on Poor Dandy) which consists of slightly more subdued but no less interesting pieces for the guys who want to wear 'vintage/reclaimed' clothes in a way that isn't as obvious as a 2nd hand lumberjack shirt…

(Photography by Louie Banks, Styling by Kim Howells)

Likewise, the womenswear pieces 'Pour Dandyetta' also focuses on black and splices the bottoms of glamorous black gowns with tees and sweatshirts to create highly juxtaposed pieces.