Stefan Cooke Spring 2023 Ready-to-Wear Collection

Entertainingly intertwining the twee and the twisted, this Stefan Cooke collection introduced womenswear to their offer for the first time. Explained Cooke afterwards: It felt really right to do it. We felt the team we had was really right to do it. And we felt like our ideas came through really clearly: we wanted it to be really succinct, but also really tactile. Its amazing to be doing dressmaking, and Jake studied as a womenswear designer so Interjected Burt: its totally limitless.

For women, the pair applied a silhouette wed seen before for men the Miu Miu high-skirted minidressin pieces whose hems included ruffle and ribbon. There were also some excellently innovative but also intelligently derivative twinset zip-up minis. These spoke to the labels central, knitwear-derived visual language of emptied argyle and tangled cable. The cable was embossed into cracking bombers in denim and leather, and across the glute zone in denim pants. The argyle motif was developed cleverly on penny loafers and a zip-up off-white jacket.

The freshly articulated statements were the knotted bows embedded in T-shirts above ruffle minis and fitted equestrian pants for girls, as well as tight tops for boys. A cheekily referential Herms-ish, Versace-ish silk scarf print centered with a leather cap semaphored its own evocative allusion. A series of T-shirts covered with paillettes over reproductions of cool-but-cheesy (and cheap) pieces Burt had laboriously sourced on eBay were, he said, an illustration of the disparity of perceived value (and they were fun, too). Cooke, Burt and their team delivered a tightly compelling collection.