“The color clash was one starting point. And then I wanted things to feel very handmade and artistic. We looked at different artists and thought about the Bloomsbury group and worked to give the clothes a handmade feeling—of things not being so precise.” Such was Markus Lupfer’s summation of a collection that seemed simultaneously consistent with the previous 19 I’ve reviewed (in that sense of color, the knitwear, the playfulness) but also represented an evolution.
Lupfer has long moved on from his gauzily sheer, ultra-embellishment stage to a more grown-up but equally characterful design identity. Here there were a few long and loose (but cinch-able by drawstring) dresses in crepe or viscose featuring Arts and Crafts-y mismatched block-print panels or prints of florals scattered among a scrawled emblem that read “the future is handmade.” Wide-legged cords and matching bomber jackets in rust, khaki, faded pink, and baby blue played nicely against specialty knits featuring intarsia or sequin illustrations of rabbits, teapots, and other gently kooky doodles. Lupfer’s gap-toothed full-lipped logo was reproduced in washed painted panels on shirting or split down the middle then reassembled wonkily on sweaters. A black sweater, a trench in a pleasant Italian check cotton, and a metallic-hued lip-jacquard dress all featured cute short cloaking at the shoulder, and there was a gentle suggestion of make-do-and-mend in a patched-together field jacket, a three-tone jacquard trench, and the use of mismatched buttons.
You get the sense that Lupfer knows his customer and moves with her. If so, then this season she wants to appear carefully careless in her un-put-togetherness via a collection that was designed to look spontaneously assembled and which was, of course, anything but.
