Twenty years into his London residency, this year David Koma has formally been granted British citizenship. The honour has made the designer – born in Tbilisi and raised in Saint Petersburg – approach his adopted country with new awareness. While his proposition was never founded in British heritage, it is at heart a London brand: a contemporary reflection of the sense of occasion intrinsic to British dressing mentality. For Fall Winter 2022, David Koma investigates the idiosyncrasies of British dress codes through his own distinct lens, and studies the uniforms of country’s favourite sports – of football and rugby.
The collection embraces the archetypes of England with equal adoration: the upper class, the working class, and the sporty. From the ladies of London’s stately ballrooms to the party girls of the city’s dancefloors, occasion-wear traverses silhouettes from the sculptural silk taffeta volumes of haute couture to the skimpy hemlines of little club dresses. Infused with the spirit of sportswear, the codes of both territories are diluted into daywear embellished with the regal sparkle and colours of precious stones.
Memories of British heritage imbue the collection. The lines of tartan are evoked in the boning patterns of corsets and latticing of leather harnesses, which also appear fully embroidered in emerald gems. The streetwear founded in British subcultures informs a focus on outerwear, which hybridises and glamorises the tropes of the urban wardrobe: the protective pads of a leather biker jacket are covered in crystals and a nylon bomber jacket is bursting with plush Mongolian shearling.
Inspired by Lily Parr, the successful female footballer whose 1920 Boxing Day game attracted a crowd so big it caused a ban on women’s football games being hosted in Football Association clubs, David Koma interprets the codes of football from a glamorously female perspective. Along with those of rugby and cricket, its uniforms are celebrated in opulent manifestations.
Here, scrum caps and shin pads are sumptuously bejewelled, dresses are adorned with sporty stripes encrusted with plexiglass beads. The graphics of a referee’s uniform are conjured in crystals on a dress, while rugby shirts turn into preppy polo dresses. Intarsia knitwear is emboldened with the stripes of sportswear, and a football scarf cheekily transforms into a bandeau top. The emblem of English rugby, the red rose appears as crystal embroidered patches and as an intricate bra, recoded as a symbol of femininity.
Fall Winter 2022 marks David Koma’s debut shoe collection. Made in Italy, the shoes are distinguished by a chrome toe cap and their signature heel, a bolted silver structure which draws on the haute couture language of perfume flacons.
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