All photos Jim Tobias
Let’s face it, a dress simply has to be wearable the same way a chair should have legs that make it balanced. No matter how many hands it passes no matter how many sewing needles pierce it. Does that mean a dress is just a dress is just a dress, so on forever and always? The answer is no, as evidenced by the eponymously named, buzzy-of-late brand Charlotte Knowles. Its designer, Charlotte, and her design partner, Alexandre Arsenault, sent some high-concept (and completely wearable) things down Fashion East’s runway that absolutely seemed like possible future-ware for the modern age: Multi-dimensional, feminine, sexy––and yes, even practical––aside from their risking-it-all cuts. The conversation of what a woman wants to wear can be top-heavy and monolithic at times, ahem, Hedi or Pheobe, so Charlotte’s take is all the more relevant as a next-gen voice.
Her Spring Summer 2019 collection was corded dresses, techy bustiers, criss-cross strappy bodysuits clung to the physiques of their confident wearers. It was like inverted undergarments daringly rigged for the everyday. It pays off by being both sensual and engineered. If you’re confident enough, this is your cutting-edge uniform. “The DNA is super feminine, confident, unashamed, but never vulgar,” says Knowles, “To us, the most important of the design process is always making sure we are creating something desirable and not just some frills and glitters.” This time around, the collection included sleek funky sunglasses. Proof:
“We had this idea of making these glasses that looked extremely sporty and almost like snake eyes, we wanted them to feel like the sunglasses people would wear in a strange near future,” says Knowles. Considering that the brand only first debuted at Fashion East in 2017, such a convincing vision of said near future outright is uncommon. When Charlotte explains the process, one might almost think it was a cinch: “We always have fun once a garment is figured out on a toile level and we then need to figure out the finishings and details, it just takes the garment from idea to a real luxury product and comes to life.” Her clothes can already be seen in editorials in Pop and Print and a quick glance at who follows @charlotteknowleslondon paints the picture of a young designer that has the attention of the industry.
