Jaeger Ready-to-Wear

Jaeger London presents a collection of clothes that conjure up an aura of refined decadence.

His slick tailoring in cool cottons and chic, double faced canvasses, outlined with black bindings for extra graphic modernity is paired with romantic sprigged tunic- blouses, fluid maxis, flirty voile minis and a multiplicity of trousers, from the fashionably slouchy peg leg to the sportive crop and the bold sweep of a wide palazzo or a floral printed harem pant.

There’s a multitude of influences here – fragments from our collective memory bank of spine-tingling style statements. Raffish British elegance is emblematically channelled through Stephen Jones for Jaeger London trilbies and draped or knotted printed turbans.

The English garden shimmers in differently scaled poppy prints, digitalized rainbows and summer weight guipures in lime sorbet. There’s even a 70s kaftan moment, with envelope sleeves in oversized paisley print. All of this is reworked, re-proportioned (higher waists, slimmer cuts, small, neat shoulders) with contemporary jolts of pea-pod green, coral, ultra violet or sun-bleached pebble neutrals, and styled with some major accessories designed exclusively for Jaeger London by Erickson Beamon. Loopy raffia necklaces, leather flowers, multi-stranded ethnic beads and tough looking metal chains, plus 135mm worth of block platform, add up to silhouettes that have half geometric exclamation, and half déshabillé sexiness.

A striking architectural sleeve from the 1940s becomes a key feature throughout, emphasising shoulders yet retaining a sense of fragility. A black and white, slit sleeved coat from the 1950s is re-invented when it’s re-blocked in raffia cloth and worn over a soft flirty dress – a very topical take on the British love affair with tweeds and chiffon. Multiple rows of stitching imbue clothes with a sculptural crispness and functional strength.

For Spring/Summer ‘09, developing Jaeger London’s handwriting also involves using rouleaux and drawstrings at the hips and waist, as a way of drawing clothes into the body while keeping them light, voluminous and dramatic for volume that flatters.

There’s a juxtaposition of hard versus soft, tailored versus fluid, practical versus the deceptively delicate, and black versus pops of colour for dramatic contrast. The colour fades – like the rainbow after the storm – as the collection progresses through to palest sun-bleached, faded and whitewashed sorbet shades.

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