Andreas Kronthaler and Vivienne Westwood rediscovered “My Fair Lady” musical during their lockdown. Combined with a timely refurbishment of their 1980s vintage couture store on London’s Davies Street, the result was a collection and video titled “Mayfair Lady”.
The collection was a love note to London, and to Mayfair in particular, with its boarded-up shops and pubs, its empty streets and gardens.
For Fall/Winter 2021, the designers tapped an international band of models and performers to show off the Kronthaler’s collection in and around the store, strolling giddily past Dunhill’s master-of-the-universe members’ club Bourdon House and pacing the area around the corner recently redeveloped by Hussein Chalayan.
It was all very campy, very flirtatious, very impish, and cool, true to precedence without relying on it, seminal for seasons ahead without being precocious.
The collection was a joyfully haphazard collage of references sprinkled within a typically anarchic Kronthaler context while outerwear was particularly strong. Many of the pieces were upcycled, and the designer said his shapes were sometimes dictated by the scraps of fabric available. Tulle, lamé, and knitwear entwined to offer contemporary Pygmalions tools for their own reshaping.