I've been dying to post about Poppy Warwicker-Le Breton's work since I first saw it exactly one week ago on Fashion156 (those people have possibly the greatest style radar known to man). I could only find runway photos (from London Graduate Fashion Week) of Poppy's final project for her BA (Honours) degree in Fashion Design at Manchester Metropolitan University though, so I have been patiently awaiting these lookbook photos from Poppy herself. While Poppy cites the city and the function of clothing in the urban landscape as the inspiration for her collection, Björk came to mind as soon as I read the collection's title: 'Concrete Poetry'. And I'm certain that Björk (and myself) would feel right at home in Poppy's designs, especially the entirely hand-made conceptual pieces, the knitted parts of which were amazingly finger-knitted and hand-shaped on the stand (see above).
I'm usually not a huge fan of prints, but Poppy's use of "digital print to create graphic silhouettes, mirroring the lines of the city in contrast to the soft wool forms" is also quite stunning (see above). And aside from hand-knitting and using digital print, Poppy also machine-knit fine black chenile, dry-felted print on wool, created ruffles by tacking square cotton pieces onto a cotton base, and used menswear detailing in some of the pieces. Oh yeah, and there's also some jersey and a denim jacket in there. In short, this girl has heaps of tactile talent! If only I could get my hands on that column dress with the ruffled collar (see below).
And how about one more sigh and one more photo for the road. This would make Susie Bubble rather delighted, as she loves campaigning against the infrequent showcasing of the backs of designs...
(Runway photos via catwalking.com)
