EMMA DAVIDSON, FASHION FEATURES DIRECTOR
For me, the standouts this season were the three Ms: Mowalola, Martine Rose, and Glenn Martens (okay, kind of) at Y/Project. But if I were to really narrow it down to just one, it would have to be Martine. Given how sporadic her shows are, it’s always exciting to see her name pop up on the schedule, and her SS23 collection was probably my favourite of hers ever. For a good few years now, the runways have been putting out this very sanitised ‘look, but don’t touch’ version of sexiness – all Swarovski-crystal encrusted spaghetti-strap slips worn by mega slender models – which ended up feeling anything but, but for the first time in a while, it felt as if real, dirty, sweaty sex was back on the agenda. Along with Mowa, who leaned hard into BDSM with standout collection Burglar Wear, Martine’s show epitomised this vibe shift, as she sent her usual rag-tag cast of characters storming through former gay sauna Chariots in London’s Vauxhall – a place where sweat once literally dripped from the ceiling, and all manner of trysts happened in its darkened corners. Each was in a state of undress, with shirt buttons unfastened, crotches creased and pulled tight, and t-shirts and dresses appearing half-on, half-off in the haste to either undress or cover up to avoid getting caught after a quickie. Add to this the fact LV CEO Michael Burke was sitting on the FROW, and there’s some very large shoes at the French house just waiting to be filled, and it made for a very exciting show indeed.
