Sibling Spring/Summer 2017 London

by LUKE LEITCH

Sisters and brothers walk together at Sibling! Today Sid Bryan and Cozette McCreery short-circuited Resort and presented Spring ’17 for both genders simultaneously. They did it first.

Before getting to the clothes—but stick around, because they’re worth it—here’s some admin pertaining to the now-relocated-to-June womenswear. According to McCreery, the collection should now be in stores from November (their September show clothes drop in February) and its store-life will be extended via expanded waves of product drop. She said that the new arrangement is advantageous on many levels, including: happier retailers, more time for the factories to devote to the menswear, and Sid and Cozette get to go on holiday this summer instead of fretting about London Fashion Week. “It’s not rocket science,” she added. “It just makes sense.” As for the exclusively womenswear editors who weren’t here today? Feel free to check out the gallery on Vogue Runway.

The collection was a love letter writ in knit to that summer holiday to come. After a guy-lead opening—this is still nominally men’s fashion month, after all—both womenswear and menswear were presented in complementary micro-suites. That introduction took us straight to muscle-beach, but Sibling-ated. Bouclé sequined budgie-smugglers (an Australian term for minimal men’s swimwear) were accessorized with pretty much nothing before a knit basketball look in a pattern of zigzaggy, vaguely leafy panels lent flesh some shelter. A women’s one-piece in the same fabrication followed before some scarlet fine-gauge basketball shorts for men and women offset by corsets. A romper suit (female) and a denim suit (male) both came in a scarlet brighter than sunburn. Then shift to a double set of swimsuits in what looked like chenille-plated toweling in horizontal deck-chair stripes of summer-sky blue and white contrasted with crochet pieces ruffled with tricolor pastel flourish at the arms. These were complemented by cricket-jumper crop tops that accentuated what the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper might term underboob (for both genders). This section was borderline preppy; deeply dissolute Ralph Lauren. Following a more monochrome zigzag section we got to the “Sid specials”—the show-closer hand-knit statement pieces. These followed the zigzag template but were articulated via tufted panels on stiff netted garments. Sid and Cozette emerged in their IN T-shirts, and then were OFF—on holiday.