Breaking ground

Florals are a tried, tested but somewhat tired fashion trope – but not this season, as all manners of designers give them all manners of makeovers. Alexander Fury plucks the best of the bunch of the season’s reimagined blooms

Prada Spring-Summer 2016

Florals for spring? Eschew your Devil Wears Prada-inspired sneer, because they can be ground-breaking. Or, at least, they can look new. A few years back, Christopher Kane presented a spring/summer 2014 show whose foliate inspirations were the very definition of abstract. Utilising school biology illustrations, Kane embroidered cross-sections of flowers, or even wove them into lavish, laborious and Latin-annotated laces, while simple sweatshirts were adorned with bisected blooms or words like “PETAL” in lace-inlaid block capitals. It was the familiar floral motif presented in a way we’d never seen before, and it was electrifying.

Fast forward to spring 2016, and everyone’s at it – rethinking foliage motifs, and trying to make them modern, exciting. Fresh flowers. Mary Katrantzou amped-up the contrast on flower-pricked fields and starry skies, blending the two together in dresses that, with undulating folds of fabric, themselves resembled strange tropical blossoms. Erdem turned his brocades inside-out In fuzzy fils-coupe, giving flowery fabrics a three-dimensional feel. And Christopher Kane once again abstracted them, into giant two-dimensional cut-out flowers that wound up looking a bit like fried eggs.

Even common-or-garden flowers are being reinvented by canny frock-merchants. Vetements – the much buzzed-about and even more copied Paris-based collective – hit a home-run with a traditional floral pattern cut into a baggy, saggy dress, with ruffles and tie-neck. Sounds frumpy – and it could be. But somehow, on everyone, it seems achingly cool (horrible word, but no other option). Meanwhile, Alessandro Michele’s Gucci has strewn posies of three-dimensional flowers across evening dresses – his signature being a corsage clasping the throat. Easily imitated, especially if you still have them from the last time they were fashionable (Chanel also offers a chic line in pin-on camellias – each hand-made in Paris).

Variety marks this trend out, with high street and high fashion designers equally thinking outside of the box. Expect to see florals fractured into patchworks, blown-up into placement prints where a single bloom spans the entirety of a garment, or embroidered onto unexpected garments, like slick leather biker jackets or utilitarian sweatshirts. Oh, and for the more traditionally-minded, it also means you can take your pick from flower-flecked frocks. This spring/summer season surrenders some of the prettiest for years.