Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2011 Catwalk Review: KTZ

Illustration by Antonia Parker

Over at Osman, this sleek silhouettes glided gracefully down the beautiful blue ink-blotched catwalk on models sporting blunt Cleopatra bobs with eyelash-skimming fringes.

Osman Yousefzada showed a sophisticated palette featuring lot of ivory and charcoal in sharp yet flowing shapes. Colour flooded in, information pills taking the form of feature linings and leather trims in rust, scarlet, pale aqua, neon pink and lime. The show opened with a beautiful ivory dress, featuring a v-shaped accent to the bodice in bright cobalt, echoing the beauiful inky stripe printed on the catwalk itself.

Illustrations by Donya Todd

The chic and sharply flared wide leg trousers were particularly prominent, billowing around the models’ legs as they sashayed their way towards the photographers’ pit. I was sitting way back in the sixth row but semi-successfully found a gap in the rows of heads to capture some of the looks. Key pieces seemed to keep on coming; dresses with contrast-lined capelets, black leather with hot pink horizontal stripes, a Morticia-length charcoal wool dress, a leather-fronted blouse with bright orange floor-length tied tails to the back, the list goes on.

Illustration by Madi Illustrates

Photography by Naomi Law

There was a hint of the 1960s with a-line shapes and geometric capped sleeves, but pattern or ornamentation was minimal, save for one striking orange chiffon dress with chocolate brown embroidery. The collection managed to make crayon brights into something more sophisticated – the careful balance of colour and monotone combined with expert tailoring in subtly varyied textures was sharp, modern and crisp.

Illustrations by Rachel Lewis

There were two show-stopping floor-length black dresses with dramatic fluffy sleeves so huge I assumed they must be fake fur (hence asking two of our illustrators to work from these designs). I was disgusted to discover later that Osman has made the vile decision to use real fur in his collections. It’s nasty enough that anyone would choose to use animal fur in the first place, but even harder to understand when they’re going to end up dyeing it a completely unnatural colour anyway. Unfortunately this took the shine off the collection, none of this next season thank you!

Illustration by Antonia Parker

See more of Antonia Parker’s illustrations in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration!

viagra approved aka Artist Andrea” title=”KTZ A/W 2011 by Andrea Peterson, page aka Artist Andrea” width=”480″ height=”595″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-37005″ />
KTZ A/W 2011 by Andrea Peterson, approved aka Artist Andrea.

I wasn’t going to go into Somerset House on Wednesday, I really wasn’t. But the lure of a new Kokon To Zai collection was just too much. And boy was I glad that I did head into town for what turned out to be one of my very favourites shows of the week.

KTZ A/W 2011 by LJG Art and Illustration.

On entering an extremely packed BFC tent (menswear seemed much busier this season) I was left wondering where to sit when Lida Hujic grabbed me and led me to a prime spot near the catwalk entrance, right next to Prince Cassius, Leroy of Diary of a Clothes Horse and, erm…. the Bosnian ambassador. There’s nothing like a bit of diversity on the front row!

KTZ A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

KTZ A/W 2011 by Kayleigh Bluck.

Building on their monochromatic S/S season KTZ served up a primary coloured delight…. a little bit 80s, a little bit Memphis and a whole lot of fun. Calder-like 80s graphic sculptures rose in whorls out of heads. Huge ball bangles created bold wrist protuberances.

KTZ A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

KTZ A/W 2011 by Maria Papadimitriou.

Earrings, necklaces, brooches and sunglasses were striped, gold, abstracted statements. And for the men? Primary coloured balaclavas with bobbles: part bank robber, part cold small child.

KTZ A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

KTZ groupies by Andrea Peterson, aka Artist Andrea.

But, onto the main course. This was a massive collection that took in easy to wear striped jersey tops and Dynasty meets Mondrian statement dresses with amazing marbled, flounce waists and layered tailoring. For men there were patent leather jackets, striped trousers and zig zag braces. The shoes are most definitely worth a mention – striped and block-heeled for women, platformed and buckled for the men – they were a wonderful complement to the clothing. This collection was by no means for the faint hearted, but that, in my book, is a very good thing.

KTZ A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.
KTZ A/W 2011 by Antonia-Parker-
KTZ A/W 2011 by Antonia Parker.

But then I started to worry, just a little bit, that a dampener was about to be put on my enthusiasm. These days it really is so hard to tell what is real fur and what is not, and without the aid of a press release I presumed the former. Luckily I was put right straight away after the show through the power of twitter when KTZ informed me that only fake fur was used to create the fabulous oversized pompom scarf and killer colour hooded duffle coat.

KTZ A/W 2011 by Kellie Black.

KTZ A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

I think I’m in love… I actually left this show beaming from ear to ear, and I can’t often say that. Major kudos must surely be given to Anna Trevelyan for the styling; she also styled the Alex Noble installation, and Charlie Le Mindu’s show. This lady has got some seriously diverse and wonderful ideas going on. You can follow her adventures on twitter here.

KTZ A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.
Kokon to Zai by Dan Stafford.