The show was absolutely breathtaking from start to finish.
While I might have done without some of the members of the audience (particularly the women whom I was crammed next to while waiting to get into the catwalk) the show itself was wonderful and the staff pulled everything together without a hiccup. The audience was definitely full of young independent designers, Hackney socialites, Hoxton-square-hipsters and beautiful models alike.
The music selection was excellent, real deep cuts and hard-hitting bass. The build up to the first model was huge: a bit of a super-hero meets motorcycle gang build up leading towards a big bass line. Admittedly, the first piece could have hit a little harder, but everything was looking up from there. Combining intricate details and incredible tailoring KTZ hit the nail on the head. With some pieces delicately crocheted with lace, others held together with massive stitching and corset-style lacing the range was certainly eclectic and covered most interests. KTZ did very well with their choice of shapes and managed to create pieces using polygons that still seemed to flow (an achievement that I have never seen before). The contrast between rigidity and fluidity was incredible throughout.
The menswear was well done, some great patterns/palettes were used and the show was well varied. Many of the pieces looked somewhat like the bastard love-child of street-fighter (the Sega Genesis version obviously) and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air while other pieces looked a bit more like an Oakland Raiders trip to Miami Beach during pride week. The menswear was largely a great accomplishment. I cannot say that I am excited for the return of mesh tops for men (I thought these died after the filming of The Birdcage) but the Skeletor tops were absolutely filthy—I would probably travel all the way to Castle Gray Skull just to have one. The only real failing in terms of menswear was the attempt to take a feminine shoe and make it masculine. While the idea seemed to work quite well on the women’s shoes, the attempt at foot-bondage was a large shortcoming in my book. Thankfully, there were some more traditional and colorful vans-style slip-ons with some great colorways and the aerosol skull tee and the accompanying trousers were the new hotness.
The womenswear was almost perfectly flawless. Varying between colorful rigid shapes, and tastefully scandalous usage of lace, accented by futuristic eyewear and the single freshest looking (though likely unpractical) handbags I have ever seen KTZ really cleaned up on the womenswear and even managed to upstage the gorgeous woman in the front row wearing the white j-lo style dress with biker gloves. With pieces ranging from “Fantasy” t-shirts reminiscent of a Lupe Fiasco album cover, big ol’ pointy shoulder pads on tops and the finest tailoring I have ever seen on my life on the last pair of trousers KTZ absolutely killed it on the womens collection.
The close of the show left me hungry for more and truly pumped up. All in all, the show was a great success and KTZ’s forthcoming line is a force to be reckoned with.
Full pictorial available now via http://www.onoff.tv/ with video to follow (will embed once it is available).
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