Louise Gray (Q3216)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Louise Gray is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Louise Gray |
Louise Gray is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
God bless Louise Gray. You do forget sometimes, shuttling around the city's recently slicked-up fashion week, that London was once the place to see shows with models wearing hats made out of trash bags. But you can always count on Gray to tune you back into that trademark English eccentricity. The bin-bag hats on Gray's catwalk today were created by Stephen Jones, and if this is a just universe, they will be shot for a great many Fall '13 editorials. There were also earrings made out of whisks, and a toilet-paper-roll brooch, and dresses that looked like they'd been patched together with tinfoil. The theme of the collection was, in essence, insanity.Yes.Gray's show made for something of a palate cleanser amid the tasteful good sense on so many other runways.Gray's special gift is to make looks that are pretty much loony tunes seem convincing. There's no logical reason why a sparkly dungaree dress in two very clashing patterns should come off as a viable thing to wear, especially in the daytime, and more especially, over a sweatshirt. And yet… The spirit of Gray's collection was so positive, it empowered you to entertain a look that was, perhaps, a little crazy. Not that all the designs here were altogether mad: As usual, some reasonable garments could be extracted, such as color-blocked mohair sweaters or quilted coats, shifts, and suits in abstract, tonal patterns. Admittedly, even Gray's more accessible pieces were not for the faint of heart. But then, her whole project as a designer is to denounce sartorial faintheartedness. The challenge she raised today was particularly keen. She deserves kudos just for carrying on the good fight.
17 February 2013
Last season Louise Gray went spectacularly onto another level as a designer with a show that her former Central Saint Martins M.A. tutor, Louise Wilson, said was like "something from the Paris catwalk." Wilson is the fearsome doyenne of London (and in many ways global) fashion, so great has been her influence on successive generations of major fashion designers whom she has taught and still supports. What she meant with her comment was that Gray's Fall collection combined the slickness and creativity that the French capital is famed for and from which it derives its mythological status in the fashion mind.In actuality it's London that is exploding right now with a talent that is hard to contain: a peer group of designers—mostly taught by Wilson—who in the last two days have produced their fair share of powerful moments. Like Paris in one of its creative peaks, or indeed, like London in one of its own. Louise Gray cemented her place within that group today with a collection that had far more to do with London than Paris. "I wanted to look back to look forward," she said after the show, which she titled Now What. "It was about all the things I like, basically," she continued. "I thought, I just like this, and I am going to do it." That has been the métier for many London designers this season—a sense of "to thine own self be true."In Gray's collection that idea made for a compelling display, featuring a dizzying array of techniques in print and textile innovation. The graphic approach that has been surfacing throughout this season was present in spades here, in newspaper-print prints and even a specially woven newsprint cloth. Again there was an illustrated woman—it's a trend we've seen on other runways—this time delineated quite literally in her makeup and cartoonlike in her getup: fun, but serious nonetheless. That cartoon-y feel was accentuated by Stephen Jones' hats, Tatty Divine's jewelry, and at one point, a sincere nod to Barbie. Gray's bricolage approach to "liking things" gave the collection a punk and new-wave spirit that reflected figures such as Stephen Sprouse and Rachel Auburn—who are no doubt present on the designer's list of likes—although Gray defined the mood as "art school." Really, it was Saint Martins experimentation all grown up and ready for the wider world.
16 September 2012
Louise Gray sent out only 23 looks, but they packed such an in-your-face visual punch, it seemed like much more. "It's just dresses," she said innocently backstage. But the designer also had a full plate of references, from the punk band Rubella Ballet's vocalist, Zillah Minx, to the cubist works of Fernand Léger and David Hockney's eighties-era opera sets. Toss in Debbie Harry and Diana Vreeland, and a sort of logic starts to form around Gray's hyper-graphic pastiche.Then again, logic isn't really the goal. Particularly driven by Nasir Mazhar's fantastic and crowd-pleasing sideways Mohawk hats, the eye-popping print-on-print-on-print DIY layers, sometimes embellished with what looked like an entire jewelry box of random earrings, had an intended club-faring look. But there was also something a bit sweetly old-fashioned, like the look of a silver-black graffiti brocade skirtsuit shown with matching bar code-print boots—from longtime collaborator Nicholas Kirkwood under the Pollini label—and a matching handbag. Within the mad mixes, it was hard to pick out Gray's great Scottish cashmeres, but they were there in softly marled yarns with a bright contrast band of color and a cuff or hem. Her show notes stated that this collection was about "everything, all the time," and as such that excess did succeed. On the other hand, just one of those knits might make someone a happy girl.
18 February 2012
Louise Gray's show notes revealed a telling piece of fashion advice dispensed by her mother: "Everything matches if you like it." It explains the confident way that Gray convincingly makes the case each season for her mad, magpie mix.It's the full kaleidoscopic look of seemingly haphazard assemblages of primary-colored chiffons layered with graphic silk prints, swatches of beading, and naive little scraps of appliqué that's Gray's calling card. But at times, the whole gives short shrift to its parts. Of course the eye only has a certain amount of time to parse the visual whirl as it marches by on a runway, and with Gray's bright woven-soled flatforms, yet another collaboration with Nicholas Kirkwood for Pollini, there wasn't a thing to slow these models down this season. That 60 seconds or so may or may not be enough time to notice the variegated dots on a little tweed suit that opened the show or the crafty hand embroidery of chiffon strips on chiffon dresses.Still, for Gray, this collection was markedly streamlined. It was heavy on dresses, which may have a lot of visual oomph but still have the simplicity factor of pull over, zip, and go. That's true even if you don't have the headstrong independence of Gray's Spring muses like Gala Dalí, Poly Styrene, and Vali Myers. When I pointed out a Gray sweater on a fellow editor to a colleague recently, she expressed surprise. But Gray's work has life beyond a runway. Perhaps all you have to do is heed Mrs. Gray and her daughter. The latter's clever name for this collection? Trust Me.
18 September 2011
Showgoers at Louise Gray, particularly those taking in her Pop-arty carnival of color, embellishment, and texture for the first time, might be surprised at the designer's post-show assessment. "I was trying to think more of a wardrobe of what a woman wants," Gray said backstage, her hair newly dyed an icy pink. "Like the jumpers and the different coats that you can wear to various occasions. I think it really looks like a wardrobe."True enough, those fab color-blocked and deconstructed Aran pullovers and cardigans are the very first things you'd extract from the ensembles of Koons-esque balloon hats (a second collaboration with Nasir Mazhar), padded harness bustiers, and tribal-by-way-of-Glasgow fringed skirts. The second: the cozy-cool tartan mohair bombers, for day, and perhaps car coats covered with fat gold-foil dots (a spot of overlap with Marc Jacobs earlier this week), for evening.Both are rooted in Gray's Scottish heritage, but both are done her way. (Also, check out Nicholas Kirkwood's high-heeled harlequin take for Pollini on the wellie.) Gray's textile-design training shone through here. On the mohair, she layered pixelated and blown-up plaid patterns, and when she used classic tartan wools, she overprinted them with bright checkers. Elsewhere, she used smocking to add a third dimension.The collection was named Up Your Look, a double entendre that either connotes an upgrade or suggests that Gray is going to do what she does, and if you don't like it, you know where you can put it. It's just that rebel spirit that makes her work so much fun to see.
18 February 2011
Louise Gray's maximalist pop pastiche got a little extra spring in its step this season as the designer graduated to her first-ever runway show. The models looked a bit like crested exotic birds in their bright fringed raffia headpieces made by millinery talent Nasir Mazhar. In fact, you could take that avian metaphor and, er, fly with it. Gray's collection appeared to be crafted the way that a bird makes its nest, snatching available elements—often bright and shiny—from all around to create a sort of ingenious makeshift beauty.Fluorescent cardboard and Styrofoam balls filled clear PVC T-shirts (and a wedding dress), and a miniskirt was made entirely out of bottle caps. On the more wearable side, lovely dresses in a sun-bleached multi-shade print, an evolution of Gray's signature dévorés, had an appealing pieced-together feel, especially when fastened by a cluster of little ties. The confettilike sequin embroidery on a sheer skirt, meanwhile, incorporated red hangtags. (Gray became obsessed with the idea after finding one on a vintage top and leaving it on).For all her magpie inventiveness, Gray is smart enough to recognize that art and commerce need to be closely interwoven. Perhaps that's why she so gleefully announced that the cartoony-cute rubber platforms made in collaboration with Pollini (and its new creative director, Nicholas Kirkwood) would definitely be hitting retail floors.
17 September 2010
London's East End fashion gang has gotten into the habit of tagging Louise Gray as a mini Vivienne Westwood. Well, you can see what they mean. Gray, a feisty little Scot with a topknot hairdo, has a quirky artistic confidence that's growing season by season. Her presentation at Somerset House—part static installation, part models bopping around—had guests smiling the minute they walked in. Playful was the word: She'd pinned her patchworked, multi-textured pieces to fairground boards—the kind with cutout holes for people to stick their heads through. It was an invitation to silliness and photo-taking that was happily taken up. (Any light relief in a grueling schedule is gratefully received by all.)Her felt bowlers and vaguely Nostalgia of Mud-era shapes might have underlined Gray's rep as a Westwood-alike, but look closely and there's no literal parallel, no political agenda in the younger designer's work. What she's good at is messing with fabric techniques like burn-out quilting, throwing great zigzaggy patterns together, and then finishing a total look with nutty details like orange shearling tongues stuck in high-top trainers.Fun. And as a top-to-toe look, totally individual.
19 February 2010
She started as a textile designer, and for a while it looked as if Louise Gray's scope was limited to a shift dress with dingle-dangle patchwork on the front. This season, though, the Scottish up-and-comer finally filled in the whole picture of who she is (a punchy young girl with a rebellious streak) and who she might appeal to (like-minded types with an eye for something off-kilter and vivid). She called it Oh No Babe—the words scrawled in handwriting on bustiers and coat linings in honor of her graffiti heroes of the eighties. Best, though, was the fact that Gray had a total look going on, from the brilliant arty-naïf makeup she'd devised with dabbed-on finger paints (genius idea to paint an "earring" spot on each lobe) down to coats and peg-top pants made from quilted fabric burned out to reveal bright contrast linings. There's an energy and originality here that has further to go, but Louise Gray is in her groove now, and like a street Pied Piper of London's East End, she's going to be pulling a lot of followers with her.
19 September 2009