'4 years' worth of ideas' from Luella Bartley at Marc by Marc
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It might only be four years since Luella Bartley last showed on the fashion week schedule, but the audience at her debut show as design director at Marc by Marc Jacobs treated her as a long lost friend, cheering her efforts as the models walked their finale.
'I don't care about anything else, as long as Marc liked it,' she laughed backstage with fellow Brit Katie Hillier, now creative director of the brand.
Marc Jacobs had sat ringside during the show and was all smiles at its close, after a parade of 80s-tinged pieces, inspired by BMX culture and arcade games, that fused streetwear and punkish attitude with something rather more girlish and subversive.
The soundtrack included Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland theme, a character who inspired much of the collection. 'I liked that she was militant,' explained Bartley, 'Alice is tough, and strong.'
Japanese touches - Luella credited them to the cyberpunk film Akira - came in teeny bopper rubberised T-shirts, stripe and knee socks, but also in utilitarian workwear, belted with chunky leather obis, and deconstructed and tiered pleated skirts that fell to mid-calf and were dressed down with knits and high top trainers.
'I was definitely getting itchy,' Bartley said. 'I'd been saving up ideas for 4 years. I had my time with my kids and it was lovely, but I was ready to come back. And I was in the country too, so I was completely removed.'
Despite that, she seems to have a handle on precisely what young shoppers (and not so young shoppers) will want to wear. And beyond the label's usual fashion savvy crowd too - accessories such as the grinning skull keffiyehs tied over models' chins and the shiny rubber 'ninja sneakers' will no doubt appeal to wider street tribes too.
That's precisely what was at the heart of this collection, and of the Marc by Marc ethos: a concept or outline of a girl - tough, cool and irreverent - but a broad range to appeal to all tastes.
Beyond the catwalk styling, this collection comprised skate gear, denim, princess dresses, knitwear and tailoring. You could choose high-minded - the abstract twisted bows and asymmetrical culotte-kilts - or low-key, in T-shirts emblazoned with the words 'revolution' and 'bunny hop'.
Or you could mix it up. Which is exactly what the arrival of this redoubtable duo at one of the world's most commercially successful labels has done to the New York fashion scene - to the international stage, no less.
