Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood RTW Spring 2019

Put the skate girls of Kabul captured by photographer Jessica Fulford-Dobson and the catalogue of contents from the recent Ritz Paris auction into a shaker. Add a pinch of Austrian artist Walter Pichler and American artist Paul Thek, and this is what you get: boy skaters in women’s dresses and mules and beefcakes in briefs on mini scooters whizzed about the car park space, an installation of paper clouds and white balloons overhead. It added a streetwear subtext as a jumble of references from the worlds of Andreas Kronthaler and Vivienne Westwood paraded by.

Art, folkloric wallpaper florals and crafty references rubbed shoulders with laced corset tops with an urban-pirate flavor, grand cocktail dresses in 18th-century upholstery-style fabrics, and crocheted fishnet-style knits with diaperlike volumes and tank tops. Not forgetting a multitude of cloud volumes. Westwood looked on approvingly from the front row.

Odd drop-shaped appendages resembling flat breast cup constructions, or testicles, were used to accessorize looks.

One of the male models was dressed in an organza skirt in an oversize black-and-white houndstooth motif and a tartan jacket with a black camouflage print, with the collection building on the cross-dressing momentum of the past few seasons.

Ethnic touches included harem pants and long cream shirts with allover pink horse prints worn over pants. Kitsch toy earrings and a teddy bear-print T-shirt added a childish note.

The collection as a whole was characteristically wacky with a smorgasbord of wearable elements in its parts, with the designer introducing a solar system print on a black ground on a hooded caftan that blew up as the wearer skated by, forming a headscarf when grounded.

Launch Gallery: Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood RTW Spring 2019

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