Oliver Spencer Spring/Summer 2020 London is taking us to Chinese neighbors at Street Feast Dinerama.
A paean to Hong Kong inspired by a 48-hour visit there and Wong Kar-Wai’s film, “In the Mood for Love.”
Oliver Spencer’s spring 2020 collection was a paean to Hong Kong. The designer made his first visit to the city last October and it knocked his socks off. “I’m there for just 48 hours and was absolutely bowled over by the whole place,” he told WWD after his show, held at a covered outdoor food hall hung with Chinese lanterns. “It’s just the most incredible place; like a city should be, so full of buzz and romance.”
“In the Mood for Love,” Wong Kar-Wei’s aesthetically rich film set in 1962, provided the inspiration for the season’s palette. “It’s a film everybody should watch, scene-by-scene, frame-within-frame; the most unbelievable colors and such a thing of beauty,” he marveled.
Burnt orange and the varying shades of green that Wong employed in the film combined with Spencer’s signature muted blues and grays to great effect.
The tailoring was especially strong, including a cerulean blazer teamed with an air force blue shirt, collar worn over the jacket’s lapels — a frequent styling trick — that was a nice nod to the Sixties. Also lovely were the two looks that bookended the show: belted safari jackets with ankle-flashing cuffed trousers, both in linen, the first in a fresh ecru, the last in a sumptuous teal.
Elsewhere, stripes and checks joined light seersucker to add dimension, while a print of concentric circles was derived from a Chinese tapestry of waves and appeared on shirts and shorts.