photography by shaniqwa jarvis
report by david hayes
“As a woman, I’m always thinking about what I want to wear and where I want to wear it,” said Joanna Sykes, the first female Design Director of Aquascutum, backstage after her stellar debut collection for the oh-so-British brand. “I just wanted to take English heritage and make it really modern.” And, with a label that dates back to 1851, that means there is an awful lot of heritage for her to reinvent.
“We started with all those essential winter pieces – the trenchcoat, the peacoat – photocopied them to larger-than-life size, stuck them on the wall and literally cut them up and played around with the proportions,’ says Sykes. “I even took traditional pieces, like those tweed coats with the button-on collars, and used that idea to attach sections of puffa jacket onto the trenchcoats.”
This cut-and-paste approach to heritage resulted in an ultra-luxurious collection of desirable modern classics: effortless wool, neoprene, leather and shearling trenchcoats, often with those attached splices of puffa; cropped peacoatslayered over mannish jackets and trousers; short wrap shearling skirts; plus raglan-line sleeveless leather gilets and simple shifts softened by wafts of chiffon. The colour palette was an equally modern remix of deliciously offbeat neutrals – flesh tones and been- through-the-wash beiges – lit up withhits of bright orange and cobalt blue.
“I love menswear-inspired pieces, but when I looked at the collection it all seemed too masculine at first,” said Sykes. “That’s why I added the colour and the chiffon to give it more of a womanly sensuality. Women do want things to be sexy – but in a really modern way.”
