SHOWING a collection you have toiled over for months on the evening of the last day of London Fashion Week must be a bit of a challenge, as jaded editors - who have seen just about everything imaginable - take their seats on the front row. But Aminaka Wilmont’s spring/summer 2012 offering was beautiful, easy viewing, as the prettiest of digital prints and the softest of pastel palettes were presented in the familiar surroundings of the BFC tent.
The collection was named Changeling, after the elves in Scandinavian folklore which are swapped with human babies and left to grow up in a world in which they don’t belong. And as the models took to the catwalk, the magical influence was clear to see, with sheer, sheath-like dresses in spacey prints presented alongside soft-washed leather jackets in earthy tones with ribbon-like waist tie details. The models too were elf-like in appearance, with long blonde hair, shimmery cheeks and soft nude lips.
“We were very lucky with the casting,” Marcus Wilmont told us after the show. “We wanted the girls to look beautiful, but in a way that was slightly off, slightly different, like with the clothes.”
And slightly different they were, in surprisingly wearable one-legged trousers, panelled dresses with strategic cut-outs and mesh trains, and ethereal abstract prints. It was very pretty, very flattering, very harmonious – in a way that you might expect from a husband and wife who have been designing together for five years now.
“Actually we work through conflict,” laughed Wilmont. “We go away and form separate ideas, then come together and have a huge fight. This gives us the creative energy to make something we both love.”
As the show neared its end, the clothes were increasingly toughened up - with floral printed armour at the wrists, and bulky, structured shoulders. The Aminaka Wilmont girl may be delicate and pretty, but she also has an edge, and that’s what makes it all work.
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