Colville AW22 – Vogue Runway
Fri 25 Feb
In a rejuvenated Milan Fashion Week dominated by global names, Colville is the little brand that could. It’s growing organically, not with multimillion dollar marketing budgets, but with something more reliable: word of mouth, the shared tips between one fashion-loving woman and another. Founders Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy are fashion-loving women themselves, with years of experience at Marni between them.
Listening to their inner voices, they were after protection and tenderness this season. They called it their most feminine collection to date, but they can drape with the best of them, placing a ruffle down the front of a bias cut dress to accentuate the waist and conceal what are colloquially sometimes called our “problem parts,” or ruching the asymmetric neckline of another to enhance the hourglass of its silhouette. Their fall stunner is a long-sleeved number with a ribbon-cinched neck whose overscale abstract floral print was pulled from a piece by the artist Kavel Rafferty, who paints over old postcards—a process, they pointed out, that has parallels to their own commitment to recycling.
Since the beginning of Colville three years ago Chambers and Molloy have been sourcing and reworking used garments—silk scarves, T-shirts, shell jackets. This season they added denim to their repertoire, grafting light and dark washes into a dress-length gilet and wide-legged flares. An upcycled down jacket was put together like puzzle pieces, its whimsy equaled by a matching wide-brimmed puffer hat.
Having already partnered with women’s collectives in Colombia and Mexico, they recently began working with another in Madagascar that helps vulnerable women find work and meaning; it’s responsible for the colorful weaving on a new soft bag Chambers and Molloy named the Pudding. An upstart it may be, but Colville is the full package. The label also makes some of the coolest, most collectible earrings in this city.