London Fashion Week: Louise Gray

By ALICE WYLLIE
Published on Tuesday 21 February 2012 17:14

LOUISE Gray’s highly individual work matures without losing its youthful zest

The young Fraserborough designer Louise Gray has been credited for her role in the trend towards designers ditching trends. She has been doing her own thing for a few seasons now, and her shows are the place to go to see something different and fresh rather than to pick up on the trends that will trickle down to the high street next season. Her work is always colourful, clubby, youthful and fun, inspired by everything from nail bars to club kids. This collection saw models taking to the catwalk sporting Mohawks of Jedward proportions wearing a palate of primary colours against monochrome prints in the style of datamatrix barcodes. Every inch of every garment featured print, textured or embellishment. Tights were covered in stripes of sequins in the form of stylised fingerprints, jackets were grafitti-ed, dresses covered in Spirograph prints. Smudgy zigzags were particularly effective as was a scribbly print which looked liked it had been scratched out with the wooden end of a paintbrush. The effect, as always with Gray’s work was ‘more is more’ but individual pieces, when separated from the catwalk styling are surprisingly wearable and sophisticated. Gray has evolved from being ‘one to watch’ to becoming an established name on the London Fashion Week schedule. She has lost none of the club kid aesthetic for which she is famous, but she’s also happy to prove that she can do grown-up fun just as well.

• Pictures: Getty/PA/AP

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