Peter Jensen
REVIEW
COMPLETE COLLECTION
LONDON, June 15, 2010
By
Peter Jensen's brand logo is a rabbit; its presence was felt in his pre-collection as the bunny feet that formed a frieze around the hem of a dress, or the giant eyes that stared out from a gingham blouse. And Alice's trip down a rabbit hole came to mind when he was talking about the inspiration he'd drawn from a favorite childhood book, Lisa's Birthday. Translated from Japanese into Danish in the 1970's and featuring a handful of glassy-eyed mutant moppets making candy-colored cute, it provided Jensen with the kind of girly/grotesque context that turns him on—and also makes Joanna Newsom the quintessential Peter Jensen Woman (she's wearing his clothes on tour).A romper suit in sand-washed silk or a dress with puff sleeves and a pie-crust frill around the hem were superficially sweet, except that the designer imagined them being worn by Christiane F., the teen junkie from the eighties cult movie. And his pretty little cherry red crepe de chine skirt worn with a T-shirt, socks, and trainers or stilettos? "Chloë Sevigny in Kids," said Jensen.
The argyle cardigan stitched with elasticized ribbon to suggest streamers; sugary tops in pale blue, pink, and magnolia; the butter-colored denims with the kind of embarrassingly sharp crease a well-meaning mum would have ironed into her little boy's jeans—these all hinted at the collection's seventies-style kids' party theme. But there was a much more grown-up seventies feel to full-on cocktail dresses in jewel-toned dupioni silk, and ponchos in crepe de chine printed with what looked like a collage of Japanese paper patterns. The gold leather blouson was glam rock, impure and simple. Jensen feels he appeals to "a younger customer," the kind of girl-woman who gets his pretty-but-perverse take on fashion—but it's a clear pointer for the future that his best seller is something he calls a "straight dress," as in, a straight up-and-down belted shift. In this collection, it also stood out as "straight" in the sense of "not weird"; its appeal was distinctly adult.
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