02.03.2017
A modern ode to glamour: that was very much the fur message at the AW17 London shows, where Saga Furs had worked with some of the city’s most outstanding designers on their collections. The mood was glossy and opulent – with just a hint of that tongue-in-cheek, ‘bad taste-good taste’ aesthetic that UK-based designers do so well. Exuberant colour was front and centre, in particular yellow and rosy hues, and the week felt like a high-spirited vitamin injection with a seriously cool edge.
Christopher Kane
Fur in itself is forever beautiful, but someone like Christopher Kane really understands how to use it as a strong contrast. This season, he paired it with shiny surfaces and foam resin, creating a modern and faintly kinky juxtaposition. He referenced factory workers and lab technicians in white coats, adding warmth to his clinical references with a Saga® Mahogany Mink lapel on a white lacquered coat. In a clever move, hospital-like Crocs were trimmed with mink. (Only Kane could take the world’s most ridiculed shoe and add the world’s most luxurious material to it.) A Saga® Mahogany mink coat was dotted with mink pom-poms, paired with black patent leather boots with Mahogany mink caressing the ankles.
Mary Katrantzou
Walt Disney’s trippy Fantasia from 1940 was the starting point for Mary Katrantzou’s colourful fur pieces. The opening look paid tribute to a forties silhouette with a neat, dark green tweed jacket with voluminous tonal sculpted Saga® Fox sleeves, which gave way to sponge-like check coats covered in jewel embellishments, further amped up with plush Saga® Fox collars in yellow, candyfloss pink and royal purple. Forties-inspired Saga® Fox coats came in changing hues of rose or yellow with giant Swarovski-detailed flower buttons.
Amanda Wakeley
Amanda Wakeley always brings out the richness and dramatic texture of fur to its fullest. For AW17, the designer conjured a Japanese-French aesthetic for an eclectic and elegant look. Dyed Saga® Silver Fox was used for her signature plush fox stoles and a series of snoods dyed in deep jewel tones, while a refined intarsia Saga® Mink cape was a sleek, graphic jolt of colour.
Osman
The tonal trend we saw in New York also popped up in London at Osman, where the designer sent out a pale pink coat with a matching Saga® Fox chubby gilet, tied with a pretty leather bow. Another standout look was a patchwork coat in Saga® Fox and purple dyed Silver Fox.
Halpern
After his widely acclaimed Central Saint Martins MA collection, all eyes were on Michael Halpern for his first proper standalone show and the designer more than lived up to the hype with a euphoric glitter bomb moment – very Cher at Studio 54. Saga® Shadow Fox stoles were dyed in vivid disco hues of canary yellow and electric blue, which trailed nonchalantly behind the girls. The closing look was what Halpern called an “octopus shape”, an exuberantly luxurious take on the disco feather boa, done in sumptuous fox.
Lorenzo Buzzi
Saga worked closely with new talent Lorenzo Buzzi during his MA at the London College of Fashion, and his graduate show immediately caught the eye of titles like WWD and Dazed. Fur goes hand in hand with Buzzi’s unabashed sumptuousness and rich tapestry pieces, and he showed a spectacular Saga® Gold Fox and Gold Island Fox coat with a pair of casually fabulous intarsia leather and Saga® Mink sneakers. Another beautiful fur look was a black peplum jacket with lavish black Saga® Blue Fox sleeve accents.
