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There are times when planning a runway show that all of the pieces suddenly come together. That rare kismet was present at Bianca Spender’s show today. Both the initial ideas for the clothing and the desired show space were born out of the same inspiration: airy romanticism tempered by a Brutalist edge. As location hunting and sketches began to take shape in late January, Spender tapped installation artist Lauren Brincat to create a hanging parachute for the space. Little did she know the venue had actually been a parachute manufacturer in a previous life. For the designer, it was a “goosebumps” moment.
At the show, the sunlight-flooded, concrete room complemented the hanging centerpiece under which the liquid georgette dresses (shown in gentle green and icy blues) were a contrast to the structured cotton-nylon utility jackets, all building on Spender’s deft balancing act. “We’ve been building the collection with these ideas, of juxtapositions of softness and strength,” she said backstage after the show. See also: the high-collared but lightweight blouson jacket, worn open and bare-chested with a clear amorphous pendant dangling from an invisible string. And elsewhere, a silky but structured skirt whose sculpted waistline, when sauntering on the model, had a life of its own. Spender emphasized that this collection was all about taking the hard with the soft, and, at times, the good with the bad (a “quiet rebellion,” the show notes declared).
The clothing not only delighted the audience, but it also inspired the models, most of whom popped into our conversation to thank Spender for a wonderful show. (Inviting her models into her world is something she learned while attending a John Galliano Dior runway show while her father worked in Paris, a sentence many in the next generation can only dream of saying.) The Spender disciples are a devoted community, indeed.
