Sibling Mens Fall/Winter 2015 London

Sibling Mens Fall/Winter 2015 London

There’s not been too much in the way of pure, unadulterated happiness at the menswear shows so far. That’s partly menswear’s own fault, especially in the autumn winter season; palettes of sludgy navy and brown don’t do much to induce sensations of unbridled joy. But Sibling, rounding out the second day of shows, can always be relied upon to lift the mood — and they delivered on their reputation in spades, with a perky pretty-in-pink extravaganza that blasted most of the day’s mild-mannered presentations clean out of the water.

The trio’s pink-haired, pink-clad parade of boys were inspired by a dizzying compilation of heroes: Bowie, Billy Idol, Paul Simonon, Brideshead Revisited’s Sebastian Flyte. The common ground, arguably, lay not just in that lineup’s spectacular flamboyance, but in the unadulterated pleasure of how they chose to dress. These clothes were boisterously, exuberantly enthusiastic on every level — navy and raspberry striped boating blazers, glittering checkerboard cardigans, luminous pink cobweb knits, crumpled paper-bag tailoring and slick vinyl coats erupting into swathes of goat hair. The schoolboyish proportions were underscored by riotously dishevelled styling, and by lapels festooned with swarms of tiny knitted teddy bears — a neat, Flyte-worthy touch echoed in the giant bear-monsters many of the models dragged around the runway. The show notes referenced punk, just as Meadham Kirchhoff’s did last season. But where the Meadham Kirchhoff aesthetic was driven by righteous fury, Sibling had an altogether different, more joyous motivation to their collection: to celebrate.