The Look We Loved: London Fashion Week

The fashion set is currently in the grips of Marques’ Almeida-mania. At the shows in London (the label’s hometown), many, many editors wore pieces from designers Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida’s fall collection, plus a few of their own interpretations of the line’s shredded-hemline look, too. After all, the soft, furry edge that M’A made cool isn’t impossible to D.I.Y. And, given that the label just served a second helping of this signature – in silk and denim washes dark and light for spring – it seems a worthy investment of one’s resources (time or money), for the look isn’t going away anytime soon. We love it in all of its iterations – sporty (above), or cropped, cuffed, and asymmetrical (below).

SOFTER FOCUS Above: The unfinished hemline on a cropped trouser. Below: The look’s repeat performance on the spring runway at Marques’Almeida.

And, we love seeing this sort of softness in denim (as opposed to the kind that’s actually in the fabric, which designers have truly mastered at this point) show up in other innovative ways. Like, on the runway at Burberry Prorsum, where Christopher Bailey did jean jackets trimmed with fur and feathers. Granted, his truckers were the exact opposite of Marques’ Almeida’s collarless, structureless coats. They were corseted! And they were buttoned so tightly they gave the models unmistakably hourglass figures! (There’s that waist we were talking about, again.) But it’s the turning of denim upside down – taking all the rawness out of it, or designing overt femininity into it – that was so delightful to see in London this week.