London Fashion Week: Craig Lawrence Exhibition Round Up
Exhibition & Digital Presentation:
Craig Lawrence
Faye Heran reports: Gold threads and a sleepy head
Digital presentations have been offering a fantastic alternative to the live shows this season and Jack has thoroughly enjoyed kicking back with a bag of popcorn to watch the collections on the big screen. Due to a schedule clash, we were not able to go and see Knitwear designer Craig Lawrence’s digital offering. To make up for this we paid him a visit at the exhibition to ogle his new collection. Lawrence is a true fashion prodigy, he designed knitwear for Gareth Pugh for six seasons, whilst studying for his degree at St Martin’s, and has once again landed sponsorship from Topshop’s NEWGEN initiative for his A/W 10 collection. He was initially brought to our attention last season, when we spotted a happy looking lad surrounded by amazing red and white plastic dresses in the same exhibition space. Inspired by festive decorations, his clothes struck us as imaginative, humorous and extremely fashion forward.
We visited his current stand rather late in the day and found a clearly exhausted, but ever friendly Lawrence happy to talk us through the new range. Knitted from rustic gold thread, it consists of sheer, figure hugging dresses, which use different types of weaving to create a nude, cob web style effect across the chest. Lawrence is exceptional at understanding how to dress the female figure. The pieces this season are ultra daring, in terms of the sheer element, but so well constructed they can be worked into any given autumn wardrobe. The looks cleverly revisit the techniques illustrated in his SS10 collection in the form of an exquisite silver and gold foil shrug which adds an air of theatre to an otherwise subdued collection. Jack loved the complexity in the detailing and the fact the pieces are completely wearable, we were particularly taken by a pair of long fingerless gloves. We finally veered off of the clothes chat, discussing our sleepy heads from Fashion Week and he told us about he was off to a party that night to celebrate. Jack thinks he thoroughly deserves a night off and can’t wait to see what this knitwear prodigy will turn out next.
