COLLECTIONS

MATTHEW MILLER – LONDON FASHION WEEK AW12 MENSWEAR/ 22.02.12

For his first solo London Fashion Week catwalk show, Matthew Miller presented his AW12 collection, ‘Expedition’, in the intimate setting of the Portico Rooms at Somerset House. Inspired by the tracing of our own personal expeditions, the collection captures the beauty of both man-made and naturally formed surfaces that we fail to recognise in our day-to-day life. Here, the prints that capture these surfaces become interactive, allowing their wearer to trace the exact geographical location that the print was found through the QR codes attached to each garment, literally allowing them to retrace the designer’s footsteps. In this intimate relationship between wearer and designer, we are encouraged to breach the stunning aesthetics of the collection and permeate its functionality.

 

The prints themselves derive from Miller’s own expedition where he ventured out onto the streets of London to photograph interesting surfaces that seemed synonymous with their location. As his expedition grew bigger and wider, Miller ventured further across the UK, continuously fascinated by the way these surfaces seemed to belong to a perpetual state of evolution, where their condition often changed and adapted throughout the seasons.

 

Continuing this sense of “functionality”, the collection itself champions utility as being of the same importance as aesthetics. Compasses find themselves attached to torsos, printed bags become detachable and drawstring pockets protrude from waterproof jackets in a style reminiscent of the 40s safari explorer. Here, in that intrinsic 40s style, formalwear divulges into the realm of practicality in an exploration of the “explorer gentleman” lifestyle. However, whilst the silhouettes may bring about a post-war nostalgic escapism, urban graffiti prints and box-shaped torsos bring the collection back to the modern streets of London, where burnt-orange bark prints and wood chip patterns bring about an urban desire for escapism and a rural expedition of our very own.

Posted by: Tom Bloomfield