Who?
Kiko Kostadinov announced himself as a serious and exciting talent this season, with his sixth collection. Not so much by pushing into new aesthetic, but putting out an exceptionally assured selection of clothes. The show was hosted at the China Exchange, on a baking hot afternoon, in the heart of a bustling, tourist-swarmed Gerrard Street Chinatown.
What?
In the show notes, and backstage afterwards, Kiko spoke of Jean Renoir, India, early technicolour cinema, Kafka and Martin Kippenberger. But the strength of this collection was not in what it was about — its conceptual inspirations and contextual musings — but in the beauty of the clothes. The collection mixed together greens and pastel purples, oranges and dusty yellows — an Indian theme clearly ran through it but didn’t overwhelm it, but meshed together clashing checks, and jacquards with bright orange technical fabrics.
Wow!
The soundtrack of abstracted distorted piano melodies set the mood, mingling with ornate jewellery jingling on the models was beautiful, but then it crashed through techno and into sitar and it seemed to perfectly encapsulate the poetry at the heart of Kiko’s vision for spring/summer 19.
Credits
Photography Mitchell Sams