patrick ervell fw10

Inspired by the uniform of the Chinese army, Patrick Ervell's fw10 collection is a continuation of his cerebral take on sportswear, a study on silhouette, function and materiality. In this collection, the lines are hard and militaristic, many a times obscuring the lines of the body. The palette of solid neutrals is stark interspersed with splashes of deep red and gentle hues of yellow. The use of latex and rubber gave his signature tech garments a slight twist, juxtaposing the solidity of the fabrics with the soft translucency of the latex and rubber outerwear, floating ethereally around the body. The effect is almost magical in this set of photos taken by Tommy Ton of jakandjil blog.

patrik ervell SS10

the highlight of this show, for me, was Ervell's oxidised metal fabrics that he sent down the runway in shirts, suiting and harringtons. his work is often placed into a bracket, with words like 'minimal' and 'modern american' thrown about because of his consistent visual motifs of club collars, functional outerwear, denim and his pastel-driven colour palette. however, a sample shirt i found sometime last year made of cotton interwoven with metal filament really put a new light on his work. his collections are often as much an experiment with fabrics as well as visual references, apparent in pieces like his jackets in the gold foil polyurethane found on emergency blankets, to his faux-shearling trims woven from sheep's hair, something only previously used on luxury teddy bears, both from FW09. someone on superfuture made the reference to Helmut Lang in his cerebral approach to his collections, which is a comparison at least worth considering...

all these influences are evident in this collection, one of his more overt in the last few seasons. very much keen to handle the pieces when they drop at DSM in spring.