Christopher O'Brien AW12

Having posted Christopher O'Brien's 'Inspired... AW12' just yesterday, I wanted to follow up whilst his words and and patchwork images were fresh (well as fresh as they can be over a weekend) in the memory. As we touched upon yesterday, the design talent built on the successes of his acclaimed final MA collection, softening the hard edges and developing his influences. Having studied at Central Saint Martins under the guiding influence of Professor Louise Wilson OBE, his graduate collection of crinkled wardrobe of minimal staples was distinctive yet restrained, almost puritanical. The main point of inspiration was a photo of a trio of refugees cut from the newspaper, drawn to their lived in layers, O'Brien questioned how we wear clothes. "When we put a jacket or coat on it often crinkles the garment under and I just wanted to look at bringing that effect to the top layer where you wouldn't expect it. I took it pretty extreme but as it was my MA collection with no restraints I figured it was a good time to push notions of what a man would wear." For AW12, the designer kept the principles of his MA collection and focused on filling in the details, playing with silhouettes, experimenting with the boundaries of layering, the addition of eight womenswear looks and the sprinkling of colour.

Whilst the spirit of the collection is in tune with ideas of minimalist menswear and traditional tailoring, albeit in a disassociated way, it develops its theme by amalgamating these conventions with styles drawn from elsewhere by exploring the creative potential of inherited shapes, textures and detailing. This season saw a number of traditional staples updated using his crinkled cotton and silk technique and offering a modern take on items including the dress shirt, car coat, postman coat and formal trouser. The pieces are hybrids of tailoring and sportswear which manage to be both familiar yet new and minimal yet complex.  At their wrinkled heart is the abstraction of the silhouette through the manipulation of fabric and layering in a distinctive yet restrained manner. The use of distressed and crinkled fabrics throughout creates individual subtleties, a real sense of life. Delicate and intriguing.

Shortly before contemporarily presenting the collection in a custom built (and hand painted by O'Brien himself - see below) structure at the creative pot that is NEWGEN MEN and Fashion East installations and being a real standout of the day, it was shot by Christopher Fields in and around the designer's family home in Homerton. The resulting look book is perfect Sunday morning viewing so even though I could wax lyrical about the collection long in to the day, I think its is only fair that I shared it with you. Here's the look book interspersed with a few of my own shots from the day including a few details...
   

Lookbook credits...
Shot by Christopher Fields and assisted by Jorge Ortiz, 
modelled by Alice Neale and Marco Brazic
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