Fun Fashion Fact: British people love prints

Above centre: Erdem. Above left and right: Basso and Brooke.

Above: Jonathan Saunders

Above: Holly Fulton

Above: Louise Gray

British people love many things. Crisps, Kylie Minogue, a jolly good rogering, tabloid newspapers, fog. The list goes on. When it comes to fashion there's one thing they can't seem to get enough of: prints. Big, loud, eye-fucking prints. It's not like fashion designers from other countries don't do prints but no one does them quite like the Brits. They're batshit bonkers for them.

Oh and another thing Brits love. Custard.

Jonathan Saunders

I love colour-blocking so I tend to automatically love a Jonathan Saunders collection because it's becoming his forte. The choice of colours were nice particularly the yellow with the dove grey. The clothes though, well they're really not worth writing home about. Shirts with sporty raglan sleeves, box pleat tennis skirts blah blah, all familiar shapes, completely wearable and non-threatening. Actually I did like the full cut of the sleeves on the shirts which is something that popped up at Prada too.

Jonathan Saunders Fall 2010

A very cool collection from Jonathan Saunders. I think I’ve said this before but it’s worth mentioning again what a great colourist Saunders is. He has a fondness for grey and always puts it to good use contrasting it against a bold red or a rosy pink. There were also shards of black and silver pieced into overized tops that elongated the silhouette.

Skirt lenghts were dropped and a-line, something that’s been seen at a few other collections.

What surprised me most was the great daywear he did. Even though he shows in London it looked like something you’d see at Marni or Sportmax. There were some great jackets in the opening and some billowy paperbag waist skirts with punched holes creating a pattern.

Some of his prints need a bit of work. There was one with red and cream dots but it looked like something you’d see on a throw pillow or a shower curtain at Ikea.

JONATHAN SAUNDERS SPRING 2010

Saunders is back with more colour-blocking, this time in baby blue, pink and faun.
Some daywear pieces looked clunky and either weren’t finished well or the fabric wasn’t right for the look. The white jacket with sheer sleeves was a bit of a mess and a jacket with a blue and white cube print looked amateurish.
However, a faun dress with a geometric pink insert was sexy and chic. The insert had sets of studs tracing the lines of the insert’s print. It sounds more complex than it looks and I’m not really explaining it very well. There was a beautiful saltwater taffy coloured dress with a simple frill and a curling device under a slip that gave it bounce.
I think Saunders works better with more fluid fabrics like silk. These were his stronger pieces.