Alice Palmer kicks the granny out of knitwear - Jess Jones-Berney reports from the Scottish designer's 'Into the Void' show at London Fashion Week.
Before heading into Freemason's Grand Vestibule for Alice Palmer's show, I take in the Vauxhall Fashion Scout Exhibition upstairs, where twenty or so designers are crammed into one room. There's rail upon rail of eclectic designs, giving you more time to mull over the latest talent than the blink-and-you've-missed-it catwalk shows allow for. My favourite pieces are Yusuke Maegawa's Mad Hatter on steroids headpiece, Anna Lee's wacky platform boots and Tze Goh's sumptuous lagoon blue dress/shawl combo. If only they could bottle that colour and sell it...
But now for the main event: Alice Palmer. I'm pretty darned excited because the Scottish designer, one of Galliano's Fashion Fringe finalists last year, has been making waves with the wool and I've got high hopes for her latest collection, Into the Void. On the catwalk Palmer kicks the granny out of knitwear with edgy, monochrome, multi-dimensional pieces that give way to her rock chick Black Sabbath influences – hence the collection's title.
As models with black-painted eyebrows and austere takes on those bun-on-top of head dos, currently showcased throughout east London, strut their waif shapes to a fast-paced Dan Lo-fi electro-pop mix, it's so nice to see minimalist Anish Kapoor influences. Palmer's bold black against white geometric designs engineer spaces of emptiness, hinting at similar themes found in Kapoor's 'Marsupial' and 'Origin de Monde'.
And her aesthetic understanding of wool is simply gorgeous; interspersing cream, beige and occasional slashes of red with asymmetric lambswool and fine silk. I love her dresses, notably the black and beige honeycomb mini and an optical-illusionary thigh-grazer. I'm also pining after a more slouch-able knitted cape. It's perhaps the most wearable of the collection, which is pretty good news considering that Asos now stock Palmer's pieces – and with a price tag that allows even us common folk to get a smidgen of the catwalk glamour. Three words: add to cart.
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