London Fashion Week: 10 Best Looks From Paul Smith Spring 2017

Inspired by the romanticism of the English countryside, Paul Smith SS17 was a riot of colourful wildflowers

By Annabelle Fernandez - published 20 Sep 2016

There is nothing quite like Spring. Everything is coming up roses, the air is crisp and full of hope, and the days are long—a far cry from London in dreadful September. And Sir Paul Smith’s Spring/Summer 2017 collection promises exactly just that.

It is the hump day of London Fashion Week, everything is starting to look eerily similar. And almost always due to traffic, the shows are starting ridiculously later than usual.

For those of us in the rag pack who had the right mind to forgo our chauffeured cars for the faster, but significantly warmer Tube (read: the London Underground meanders through the Earth’s core of molten lava), got to be at the English designer’s favourite venue of King’s Cross in record time and experience the wonders of Smith’s urban Eden.

Upon arrival, we saw nothing but a refreshing sight of dapper ushers in fitted suits and lush squares of tall willowy grass, daisies and violets, like wildflowers punctuating the vastness of the metallic industrial set—spoilers for what was to come.

With soft shoulders and dropped waists, the new languid silhouette was very different from what Smith offered during the season before of sharp tailoring—as shapes get bigger as the weather gets warmer. Trousers became shorter and caressed the shin as the models ran their hands through the shrubbery on the ground.

Along with the forms, the colour palette was also so nuanced and jubilant, it could even make Wes Anderson weep. With warm mustard trapeze coats, spilling into chequered moss blouses, before melting into delicious salmon suits and orange dresses. One sleeveless purple shift was so fresh—we could practically drink it.

And as Smith came out to take his bow with Shuggie Otis’s Strawberry Letter 23 playing in the background, London instantly felt like a better place.

Don’t you just love Spring?

By Adriel Chiun