The haunting, ethereal wails of This Mortal Coil swirled through the halls of St Bartholomew the Great, London's oldest parish church, on Tuesday night. With the air thick with clouds of incense, it was an appropriately surprising off-plan return for John Alexander Skelton, who hasn't performed a live show since 2022.
However, unlike past seasons, when collections were filled with narratives of British folk history, Skelton said he was inspired by the gothic aesthetic and intangible emotions sparked by This Mortal Coil, a 1980s dream pop collective. .
“It is my emotional response to [the music]. I wanted to be a lot less specific so I had the freedom to create the exact collection I wanted without having to be tied to something,” Skelton said.
That took shape in romantic long coats, tailored suits, knitwear and shirts, with Skelton's signature horn buttons scattered throughout and worn by models with lit candles in hand; All in all, an elegant ode to times of yore.
Inky blacks made up the majority of this season's palette, a choice Skelton attributed to examining 15th-century portraits in which wearing black was “generally considered a symbol of power,” he explained.
While sable stole the show, it was certainly never monotonous: color was transformed with a variety of textiles (wools, tweeds and Yorkshire linens), Dickensian silhouettes and accessorized with delicate gold hoops, pendants and earrings made by the jeweler and frequent collaborator. Thin Barrett.
The brightest hues stood out in the collection like rare jewels: wide amethyst silk pants paired with a wool coat in an even deeper shade and an emerald silk scarf tucked into black garments.
Closing the show was the most hypnotic shade of all, a blood red ruby, which took the form of a waxed cotton coat with a pleated back and a belt cinched at the waist.
It was a fascinating conclusion that echoed that of This Mortal Coil: the collective folded after releasing their 1991 album “Blood.”
