5 Things To Know About JW Anderson’s Optimistic A/W´20 Show

A pint of lager (and a packet of crisps)? JW Anderson read our minds with a collection that took inspiration from references as varied as beer cans and spatial concepts. “When you enter into the room, what do you say?”, he began, as the backstage mob descended on him post-show. “That’s what’s so strange about being a model, you have to walk into a space of strangers and how do you compete with the space?” The answer: “Textures and volumes, nouveau chic,” he continued, elaborating on his new-season offering. “I wanted something which is kind of optimistic.” Here, everything you need to know about JW Anderson’s autumn/winter 2020 show.

Some of those dresses were inspired by a Guinness can

The phrase “brewers of distinction” wasn’t something we expected to see on a JW Anderson dress – even when the dress in question is a cocktail number. But Anderson, being a good Irish boy, had been thinking about beer, and specifically about Guinness. “[The dress] was a beer can. It was kind of a fantasy brand, taking lots of beers and turning them into one,” he said, backstage after the show. “When I was younger, I was obsessed by the Guinness campaign, [the one where] there were horses running. That’s something I wanted in the beginning section, not to be cliché and Irish, but there was something nice in the typography of Guinness – there was gold, there was black, a little touch of silver and a burgundy colour. The iconography of that tin has been the same forever.” He also had crushed cans on his mind. “There was something I liked in the idea of taking a can, when you crush it, that sensation.”

Are your sleeves spooling?

Sleeves are a key trend for autumn, with designers using them as a locus for drama. Anderson made his spooling, like the inside of an old fashion VHS turned into ruffles. He was thinking, he said, “of this moment in the ’20s where everything kind of resurged again, everything kind of rebounded. We were using mixtures of fabric we have in the studio and things that we have explored before, these collage looks where it was like ruffles, the celluloid.” Make no mistake: these are the evening looks London’s cool girls will be fighting over for party season.

The accessories were zany

From balloon-shaped handbags inspired by speedball boxing bags to faux furry shoes with diamanté ankle straps (with a touch of Méret Oppenheim about them) there were numerous kooky moments on the accessory front this season. Anderson referred to them as “moments of excess” adding edge to the more classic looks, such as trenches, gently inflated overcoats and puffball dresses.

The sweater dress is back – but not as you know it

Rihanna has made it her mission to reboot the sweater dress, wearing her Fenty burnt orange number with strappy sandals for her store event at New York Fashion Week. Meanwhile, knitwear has been all over the catwalks, but Anderson’s knit dresses are some of the most innovative. “I liked this idea of an odd modular shape. We haven’t explored knit for a long time. So the large structures were built out of circular knitting.”

The soundtrack was throbbing

Four Tet’s “Angel Echoes” lent a sense of intensity to the show, which, as always, was held in the relatively cramped confines of Yeomanry House, with guests seated on black benches on beige carpet.