By Tuesday at London Fashion Week, most are extremely sleep deprived and already anxious about doing it all over again in Milan so with that in mind, Holly Fulton's fall 2012 collection was the perfect antidote to the fashion week blues. The show opened with a hot pink oversized blazer with her signature graphic prints as the model stepped out to a great soundtrack. Even the die hard minimalists at the show left with a smile on their faces and that's all part of Fulton's charm.
Anyone that has followed her over the last few years would not have been surprised that she experimented with colour for fall. While this is something that many designers have done this season, colour has become synonymous with her brand and it's this uncompromising commitment to her aesthetic, regardless of what everyone else is doing, that has quickly won her a legion of fans. "It's not something that I'm conscious of when I'm designing," she told me backstage. "I just always design what I want to wear and what I think looks great and hope that other people will like it too." And it's working.
For fall her signature prints were there but this season she worked on doing them in new ways. Her signature skyline print gave way to leaf and butterfly styles that worked well on halter neck dresses and simple cropped knit tops respectively. The collection also felt a lot more refined than in the past. While colour was there, Fulton opted not to use it as extensively on each look as she has in the past and instead focused on pink and various shades of blue in blocked styles. "I was actually inspired by my mum who wears a lot of blue," she revealed. "The hot pink is really fun and young and the blue, while still being young and fun, is more accessible". This new accessibility was also apparent in the silhouettes which, on the whole, were a lot simpler than in previous collections and there was a lot less embellishment too.
The balance worked. There was enough fun statement pieces for the loyal Fulton fan to get excited about but the more wearable pieces will undoubtedly open the brand up to a whole new customer.
