This was solely Pauline Dujancourt’s second runway present, however she has already constructed an impressively realized world round her model. First, there’s the French-born, London-based designer’s backstory: having realized to knit from her grandmother as a toddler, she picked her needles again up throughout the pandemic and undertook a knitwear MA at Central Saint Martins, which led to Dover Avenue Market snapping up her spring 2024 assortment and a short-listing for the LVMH Prize. (It was this that prompted her to surrender her aspect hustle consulting on knits for the likes of Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard and dedicate herself to her personal model full-time.) Second, there are her highly effective instincts as a storyteller: Earlier collections have taken their cues from traditions as wide-ranging because the votive tablets discovered at Shinto shrines in Japan to the flower of a plant handed all the way down to her household from that exact same grandmother—however all folded right into a sleek and calmly Gothic aesthetic universe that feels distinctly Dujancourt.
Her capability to spin a yarn—in each sense of the time period—was lots seen at tonight’s present on the Strand. As attendees filed right into a darkish, cavernous basement, knitted brooches within the form of birds have been handed out; scattered across the seats have been towering rows of dried crop stalks, to eerie impact. The primary look out, to a soundtrack of rippling synth arpeggios, was a gown painstakingly crafted from delicate strips of lace, tulle, and featherlight knits, floating within the spectral wake of the mannequin’s click-clacking white pumps and knee-high lace hosiery. There was a deliberate narrative arc to how the appears unfolded from there. Biking between white and black at first, the outfits have been impressed respectively by Dujancourt’s mom’s wedding ceremony gown and conventional mourning garb. Subsequent, splashes of blue started to emerge, first by a handful of deep navy robes; then a punchy royal blue cropped up throughout clutch purses and skirts, earlier than saturating a collection of swirling, sculptural robes. It was a superb showcase of Dujancourt’s capability to rework knitwear into one thing virtually impossibly mild and ethereal.
This time round, Dujancourt additionally took cues from a extra literal type of storytelling: the theater, and extra particularly, the character of Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull, the play’s doomed however formidable heroine. (Dujancourt performed the character whereas learning theater in Paris many moons in the past.) To wit, there was a recurring motif of feathers, whether or not subtly embedded within the fluttering strips of cloth sewn into coats or woven throughout clothes in a diagonal sample impressed by a pair of knit archetypes Dujancourt admitted she’s beforehand been “repelled by”: argyle sweaters and crochet “granny squares.” In Dujancourt’s fingers, although, these heavy sartorial tropes turned delicate, even sensual. “It’s revealing, however it’s by no means too attractive,” she mentioned. “I don’t need to converse for each girl, however I’m positively extra occupied with sensuality quite than sexiness. That’s actually vital to me.”
But even with the technical know-how that underpinned every garment, what felt most putting about Dujancourt’s work this season was its soulfulness. It turned out these crochet birds showgoers have been pinning to their outfits weren’t only a pretty gesture to welcome them into her world, however a tribute to a good friend of Dujancourt’s who handed away throughout the strategy of her making the gathering. Together with the present notes was a poetic extract from Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extraordinarily Loud and Extremely Shut that chronicles the narrator’s eager for a misplaced good friend or lover to return, because the pure world continues to cycle round them—a strong, evocative expression of grief that Dujancourt’s assortment artfully matched. “It takes up my entire life to run this model, and it’s a alternative, however I adore it,” she mentioned. “Despite the fact that I used to be grieving, I couldn’t cease: I had a group to ship. It’s a unique type of life, and it may be powerful. So I needed to discover that distinction between the wonder and the ugliness of all of it.” Dujancourt might have a well-earned status as London’s preeminent knitwear wiz, however she additionally proved that her technically advanced designs can carry a strong—even profound—depth.
