Boudicca (Q2023)
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London based design duo Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby founded in 1997
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Boudicca |
London based design duo Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby founded in 1997 |
Statements
"Mind-boggling—in a good way," is how one editor described Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby's remarkable Boudicca collection. TitledAn Invisible City,this was the most pure—if somewhat indulgent—distillation to date of the label's vision. Never one to understate matters, Broach described that goal backstage as a quest "to forge the identity of a future of design that is not just about making clothes, but the craftsmanship."As with most Boudicca collections, this one was about breaking down categories and conventions. Broach and Kirkby dissected shirts and tuxedos to come up with boleros made from the collar and shoulders of a jacket; strap-on waistcoats; skirts with attached vests; and shirts with jacket lapels. Some were more conceptual than wearable, but others—a leather jacket styled like a shirt, a sharp trouser, a high-neck shirt—weren't.The real drama of the collection, though, came from the designers' attempt to, as they put it, "challenge the pleat," folding material to create astounding architectural constructions. Something that looked like a (relatively) straightforward suit from the front, for instance, was likely to be sporting a bustle at back. Seen from the side, the models, surrounded by fans of pleats, looked like intergalactic Degas dancers—just the kind of girls one might expect to find in an invisible city.
9 February 2006
"Please do not touch the artwork," read the signs lining the central installation of Brian Kirkby and Zowie Broach'sRomantic Museumcollection for Boudicca at Bumble and Bumble, which was a talcum-powdered runway. This bookish, London-based team is known for their austere and artful collections, but for their second outing in New York, they displayed a softer side. Military references are a signature of Boudicca, since the line is named after a warrior queen, but overall, the mood was lightened by airy eyelet and floral prints.To a clap of soundtrack thunder, Heather Marks opened the show in a black eyelet dress buckled under the bust and covered with tassels. A white glove caught in a harnessed epaulet hung over one shoulder. Body-constricting devices were limited to neck ruffs, wide obi belts, and a slender gold metal circle tied in a blue bow at the back of a waist. Laser-cut leathers kept company with intricately pieced eyelets. A digitally printed rose-pattern damask complemented a floral-print leather that was worked into a skirt and paired with a light-blue puff-sleeve blouse (a neat twist on Victoriana). A black palette was livened up with the layering of a grayish yellow, blue, and metallic ruby red.Blame it on the sensitive assemblage artist Joseph Cornell, the designers' inspiration, but the mood was delicate: The finale pieces featured pleated skirts and falls that had a tutu quality. But separates like culottes and a chic pocket-front coat, even the perfect little black dress, were surprisingly accessible and, of course, chic.
15 September 2005
Londoners Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby brought their act this season to New York for the first time, showing 24 precision-cut pieces in a palm-frond-decorated room at the Soho Grand Hotel.The (almost) all black collection perfectly captured the strengths of the line, which marries the aggressive—knifelike pleats, pointed shoulders, militaristic fringed epaulets—with the hopelessly romantic (layers of lace floating down from leather waistbands and around strictly tailored suits). Jackets and skirts were embroidered with words and quotes from sources as diverse as Morrissey and Visconti, while surreal "exploding" eyepieces were balanced by corsages.Boudicca is not for the faint of heart (the label is, after all, named for an ancient British warrior queen), but there were streamlined pieces here that could be incorporated into many a wardrobe. A three-pocket coat had classic proportions, wool jackets were nipped attractively at the waist, while a cropped jacket in a varnishy Lurex looked as light as paper. Broach and Kirkby also revisited their signature puffer, this time in embossed brown leather.
9 February 2005
Boudicca is one of the few labels that believes in something beyond the joy of seeing lovely clothes, and its shows are always intense, out-there spectacles—this one featured dark, defiant stomping through black cinders. But though designers Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby might flinch to hear it, it is simply the bold sophistication of their work that sets them head and shoulders above anyone else in London.For spring, tailoring was razored to the ribs and strong in the shoulder. Voluminous white blouses had dramatic collars and asymmetric swagger. Chiffon dresses came devised with trailing scarves and panels of overlapping pleats that refused to obey the logic of a hemline. These are obsessions the couple has always harbored, and in their own Goth-minded way, they admitted this collection was a step toward consolidating the rock-solid identity the label needs in order to reach new markets. "It was about the ghost of autumn 2004 haunting summer 2005," Broach said. Strip away the complex, tied-on extras, and underneath there's a collection of extraordinary pieces that, on a rail, will hold their own next to anything in Boudicca's home town—and beyond.
21 September 2004
Boudicca are London's last remaining bastion of subversive design. "The industry's boring right now," Zowie Broach said. "Fashion has to be about more than just the clothes." In a phase of standardized commercial showings, audiences welcome anything in the way of drama—always providing the clothes lead fashion somewhere new.This season, Boudicca took to the stage of the Mermaid Theatre, creating a patch of moorland turf scored with what looked like chariot tracks, and played the soundtrack to the movieBadlands. Onto this melancholy heath strode a deeply hooded, black-clad figure, to open a collection that mixed sporty, protective clothing with sharp, militaristic coats lashed with narrow leather holsters. Called Hunter-Gatherer, the theme appeared to make some mysterious connection between Queen Boudicca's ancient British Iceni tribe and a modern post-apocalyptic dark age. Barbaric fur collars and heroic asymmetric stoles were slung around coats, interspersed with outfits made of slick, translucent hooded jackets and track pants. Among all this, Brian Kirkby's ace way of wielding the scissors produced the occasional amazingly fitted gored skirt that was beautifully in step with fall. That talent can't be obscured, but as a collection, it felt as if Boudicca had wandered back into a depressive place where few will understand.
15 February 2004
Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby knew they had to put on their very best performance to live up to their new standing as the latest great white hopes of London fashion. After winning the support of American Express, the pair, known as Boudicca, is literally following in the footsteps of Alexander McQueen, the last son of the avant-garde to tread the hard road from East End starvation to fashion stardom.If the audience expected major McQueen-style theatrics along with the new funding, they were disappointed. Broach and Kirkby don’t want any storyline to distract from their extraordinarily precise, almost molded tailoring, with its geometrically exact inserts, flying pocket flaps, fanny-hugging curves, stiff pleats, and voluptuous, rolling flounces. And while there’s something in the rigor of these clothes that marks them as belonging to the same school of craftsmanship as McQueen, the details—like pleated grosgrain edges and cross-lacing—are pure Boudicca.The label’s best feats for Spring were performed in lustrous white heavy-grade couture cotton: sculptural, high-waisted dresses underlined with insets of black; or an intensely curvaceous white skirt suit with the seaming picked out in flat grosgrain ruffles. Sporty, space suit-inspired jackets, some in crunchy metallic silk shot with Lurex, came with zippers diagonally splicing the front. But the highlights were Boudicca’s skirts. Contrived to offer amazing views from the back, they came tightly fitted over the rump in mathematically exact piecings stamped with studs, or with fan-like tail feathers made of stiff pleats, like some strange modern take on a bustle. Close up, all that classy workmanship is a marvel to behold; but viewed with a less technical eye, it also spells S-E-X. That’s a strong step in the right direction along the rocky road to recognition outside London.
20 September 2003
Extraordinary cut. Dramatic silhouettes. The sound of an audience bursting into spontaneous applause after an atmospheric build-up. Sounds like the good old London we used to know. It took Boudicca, the reclusive East End–based duo, to stir up the city to a level of excitement that’s been mourned since Alexander McQueen departed for Paris. Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby’s collection, crafted entirely in black with the exception of one dress, was a beautifully considered sequence of darkly feminine glamour, with extra sparkle provided by the original use of Swarovski crystals.Boudicca is not an overnight student phenomenon, and that’s a good thing. Shaking off a five-season reputation for cryptic presentations in dank venues, Broach and Kirkby seized their debut appearance in the official British Fashion Council tent as an opportunity to hold their talent up to the light for the first time. What was revealed had an accomplished, distinctive, sometimes couture-like quality that showed through in striking lace dresses, taffeta skirts with deep knife-pleat flounces, slithery asymmetric jersey, deluxe blousons and puffy down jackets.The detailing showed all the ingenuity and skill of a couple who have devoted years to questioning and refining their vision. Dresses often came overlaid with lace tied on like an apron; skirts were crisscrossed with ribbon in back or exploded at the hem with extravagant godets, one decorated with giant black silk roses. Amid all the layers of black, the models’ limbs and faces were adorned with crystal transfers, an effect building to a finale of a girl who appeared in a sparkling silver jacket and headpiece. And that was when Boudicca won the London season’s first ovation.
16 February 2003
Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Their Boudicca presentations are symbolic, troubling experiences, drawn from sources so deep inside their heads there ought to be a handbook with footnotes. But then again, who needs explanations? Even at the far reaches of the avant-garde, fashion isn’t—or shouldn’t be—that complicated.Boudicca’s Spring spectacle left viewers groping for meaning once again. The stage was set with a black-painted skeleton, a stuffed black swan, bowls of black-painted apples and digital clocks that the models punched into action as they passed, in the same clothes, over and over again. It was surreal, painfully slow and much like being trapped in a looping dream—exactly the vibe the designers intended.Did the clothes mitigate the torture-by-conceptualism? Almost. There were beautiful asymmetric jersey dresses as well as elegant one-sleeved taffeta gowns. A normal woman could wear these statuesque, graceful clothes without being an involuntary walking art manifesto. In the end, it’s as simple as that.
13 September 2002
The Boudicca experience is an intense one. For designers Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby, fashion goes far beyond the simple enjoyment of things to wear, and into the realms of symbolism, psychology and politics.This show was a walk on the dark side—literally. Models walked in somber steps, following a spotlight that was dragged overhead to illuminate their way in a blacked-out studio. But if the sinister portent hanging over this collection was unavoidable, it never overshadowed the level of refinement Boudicca's work has reached. Unlike many less experienced London designers, Broach and Kirkby have a rigorous way of cutting and tailoring that produces precisely pressed and folded graphic shapes that could not have come from any other hands. A Boudicca piece—whether an asymmetric satin skirt, a kimono dress with a caped top or a dinner jacket with the lapels fused into the jacket and the tail lopped off square—is recognizable by its formality, dignity and presence.Though these compelling qualities have spellbound many fashion insiders, outside support has been hard to come by—maybe because the label is impossible to pigeonhole by trend or category. Barneys New York is one of the few stores to carry Boudicca pieces, as was the London boutique Yasmin Cho, which has recently gone out of business. Such blows are capable of knocking small designers off-course, but by the look of this collection, Boudicca is determined to keep on following its own uncompromising path.
18 February 2002
Boudicca partners Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby were both peaceful observers of the tempestuous events surrounding the G-7/8 Summit in Genoa this year, and their "Corporate Deserters" presentation was designed to convey some of the tension and anguish they felt there.Boudicca's masked models stepped out to a menacing soundtrack that featured the whir of surveillance helicopters. In homage to the early British warrior queen for whom the label is named, many of the clothes were dyed woad blue—the color of the war paint that she used. The severe tailoring and complex dressmaking, meanwhile, conjured a couture vision of the '50s, as filtered through an early '80s electro-pop sensibility. Boxy shouldered jackets and trousers with squared-off box-pleat hems were juxtaposed with pencil-skirted '50s air-hostess dresses or elaborate evening gowns. The gowns, in taffeta and old-fashioned brocades (and featuring the most hard-edged use of eyelet embroidery so far this season) had the look of midcentury haute couture pieces, their elaborate construction paradoxically set off with raggedly unfinished seams.Memories of Genoa were reflected in cryptic details—like brass name tags, or the legend "FAULT," with an arrow pointing toward an arm seam—that cannot have the same resonance for those who weren't there.
20 September 2001
You will not be wearing Boudicca’s clothing to the grocery store, to work or even to a nightclub. As a matter of fact, unless you’re the guest of honor at a museum reception for an exhibition on deconstruction and architecture, it’s unlikely that you will find much use at all for a striped pantsuit with tie sashes across the legs and breasts, or an enormous, stiff leather corset with positively dangerous edges.Of course, fashion is not just about cashmere twin sets—and, to be fair, Boudicca did show several wearable looks, like a belted cream Kimono coat worn over culottes, an aged leather coat with paneled insets and several beautifully draped dresses with gold straps. Still, at a moment when even the most intellectual fashion seems to be moving away from angst-ridden conceptualism, Boudicca’s dramatic clothes, however beautiful they may be, look at times as if they werebehindand notaheadof the times.
20 February 2001
The design team of Boudicca presented today one of their most wearable collections to date, centered around crisp white shirts and sharply tailored, high-waisted trousers and skirts. Naturally, there were still plenty of the duo's signature touches, like wide sashes across a strict top or tiny hidden drawstrings that cinch in unexpected places.Boudicca's severe, almost austere collection relied on black and white as the predominant colors, and on an architectural silhouette that brought to mind the precise lines of Gianfranco Ferrés' lean, mean suits. The (even) sexier looks consisted of one-shouldered dresses with streamers, skirts with a derrière-high slit on the back and a pair of leather briefs that tied on the side. The most accessible dresses were saved for last—simple pale-rose-printed shifts with black panel insets and wide belts.
26 September 2000
Talented young designers Boudicca don't play by any rules except their own. Boudicca are less interested in creating clothes to wear than in ideas—but that's exactly what we come to London to see. So here are a few ideas, fresh from the Boudicca runway. A striped organza blouse that billowed out at the waist in wonderfully extravagant folds was bound in with a huge white sash. Then there was the precious cut shirt, a little puffed at the shoulder, whose sleeves split down the side of each arm and were starched to within an inch of their lives. The leather coats with weird flaps at front and neck weren't exactly deconstruction nor reconstruction. London fashion sometimes defies description, but that's the fun of it.
15 February 2000