GEORGIE’S REVIEW: CHARLES JEFFREY LOVERBOY SS21
Thu 22 Oct
How do you take the riotous shows of Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, the enigmatic models, the performative energy and bottle them into a lookbook? Charles Jeffrey shows us how for SS21 with his wonderfully visceral collection. Working with photographer Tim Walker, collaborator and now mentor, Jeffrey took his familiar way of working - dressing and undressing models in a cut-and-paste design fitting style - and presented it through Walker’s signature fish-eye lens.
This isn’t the first of Jeffrey’s move to analogue, his AW20 collection presented a book in collaboration with photographer Thurstan Redding. While that showed alongside the catwalk, this film stands on its own legs as a brilliant piece. The collection was a push and pull of intimacy and tension; exposed oiled skin, fishnets and jockstraps met distorted tartan tailoring and painterly slip dresses. Puckered co-ords, longline outerwear and rainbow knits were all greedily good.
Prints in Jeffrey’s usual primary tones were here amped up to mimic nature’s warning signs, think poison dart frog meets jacquard. The casting was quintessentially inclusive and inviting, the styling raucous and playful. Jeffrey’s collections are usually self-referential, but this felt like a new, more mature personal reflection. An engaging and evolved presentation for SS21.