William Tempest, February’s Fashion Scout Merit Award Winner, is back with more of what he does best, sculptural shapely dresses. He bravely moved on from the digital prints of last season, working mostly manipulating fabrics.
Tempest added fins to everything until the dresses felt like a ‘50s Cadillac! Frocks with straps and bands were like reworked bondage trousers playing peek-a-boo with thighs and shoulders. The one print consisted of dancing and prancing women and was used on sweeping floor-length dresses. A heavily boned one-piece swimsuit drew gasps because of its Jessica Rabbit proportions and plunging neckline.
Like at Mark Fast, William Tempest chose to use a plus sized model, cementing plus-size models as a regular fixture at London Fashion Week.
Without Tempest’s crystalline digital prints he relied a lot more on colour, sensuous minks and bright corals mixed with black and white adding punch to his already sharp summer dresses. Silky lame fabrics added a touch of look-at-me luxury to floor length dresses. It’s clear to see why Tempest is the new name on the block when starlets and pop princesses need a headline grabbing red carpet frock.
Isabelle O’Carroll
Images: David Coleman
