Peter Jensen spring/summer 2017 collection presentation for LFW

“I had a Saturday job in a garden… the manager was a sadist with a wooden leg, but the smell of flowers and soil made up for it.”

LFW’s self-described maddest hatter brought the flower bed to the runway in the ICA this Saturday. In a skeleton greenhouse, surrounded by bouquets of gloriously tall, colourful foxgloves, Peter Jensen openly showcased his love of gardening as much as his SS17 collection. 

Jensen’s latest collection is all about eccentricity – pivoting around the notorious image of Lady Rhoda Birley posing, apparently reluctantly, in a flower bed with some secateurs and a raised eyebrow. The collection includes classic A-Line dresses and sweaters in entertaining prints, but also examples of these outfits taken to absurdity: hugely oversized gingham pinafore dresses that engulf the wearer, translucent dresses made entirely of individual fabric flowers. The collection is entrancing – the bright, primary colour scheme and dramatic silhouettes help, but it is in the detail that Jensen really captures the attention. Prints feature tiny sheep, popped between intersecting block colours on a sweater; crustaceans, a nod to the Lobster Thermidor Lady Rhoda prepared for her roses if legend is to be believed – are arranged into tiny heart shapes on a dress print. Outfits were completed with excessively tall straw hats and silk scarves – replicas taken directly from the Lady Rhoda photograph. They fit the tone of the presentation – indeed, it almost feels like Jensen is inviting spectators to laugh with him at his eccentric taste – but these pieces also add an elegance to the outfits that Lady Rhoda exuded. A far cry from the grass-stained dungarees worn by most gardeners across Britain, Jensen’s collection achieves his vision of a playful take on practical clothing – making it eminently wearable and a guaranteed hit when it hits the shops this spring.

Katie Dean
Photos: Krish Nagari

For further information about Peter Jensen visit here.