John Lewis’s new avant-garde fashion collection is a calculated risk
Avant-garde? Directional? Cool? These are not words one might usually associate with John Lewis, the 160 year-old high street stalwart. Yet these are exactly the thoughts that the retailer’s design team wants us to have, when viewing its new designer collaboration, arriving in stores on Thursday.
The British institution has partnered with A.W.A.K.E Mode, the luxury womenswear label founded by Natalia Alaverdian in London in 2012. It’s a collaboration that has been fixed up via the British Fashion Council (BFC) which, in celebration of 40 years of London Fashion Week, is hoping to introduce younger contemporary labels to high street audiences.
The 46-piece collection includes knotted knitted dresses, asymmetric pleated skirts, basque trousers with skirt panels inbuilt, and a knitted dress with a dramatically shredded hem. Prices start at £49, and go up to £399, a fraction of the price of the A.W.A.K.E Mode main line, from which you might pay up to £2,315 for a made-to-order jacket.
A gamble to modernise John Lewis classics
Alaverdian’s approach is to treat her clothing designs as art-like objects. She pushes boundaries with her techniques, particularly in the realm of tailoring.
The collection with John Lewis is billed as a celebration of “avant-garde femininity. Innovative cuts, unexpected details, deconstructed asymmetry and sharp tailoring all feature within the range, where the unexpected becomes elegant and refined,” an introductory statement explains.
Will the word “deconstructed” ring alarm bells to some of John Lewis’s shoppers? The most challenging piece in the range is probably the black riding jacket with the front panels carved out, leaving a set of flap pockets suspended from the waistband.
It’s a statement piece that Alaverdian’s fans will want to snap up for its £279 price tag, but will the John Lewis woman be convinced to experiment? The gamble is a part of a wider strategy to modernise the retailer’s fashion offering – to show customers something surprising was entirely the point, John Lewis’s fashion director, Queralt Ferrer, tells The Telegraph.
“It’s important to us to create pieces that excite our customers, so when the BFC introduced us to Natalia we knew the collaboration would give us the opportunity to bring exclusive, innovative designs to our customer,” she says. “We were confident that her unique design details and innovative cuts would bring a fresh feel to John Lewis classics, aligning with our wider modernisation plan. The collaboration allows us to offer our customers something unexpected, that feels different to the rest of our autumn/winter collection.”
There are many pieces in the range that would serve to give an outfit a gentler new season edge. Try the silver boots with a favourite black dress, or the suede bag with jumbo gold studs, indigo denim and a trench coat. The knitted jumper dresses – either with more dramatic shaggy cuffs, or subtle twisted bodices – could be dressed up or down for casual dinners and worn well into party season.
Ferrer predicts that women around the UK will be drawn to different styles, but that a particular red jumper will be a bestseller.
“I absolutely love the tailoring in this collection,” she says, “each piece has something unique about it, from cut out details to built-in layering. The silhouettes are incredibly flattering and they’re versatile enough to wear as a full look or as separates, which I think will make them really popular with customers. I expect the red asymmetric cable sweater will [also] be a customer favourite.”
Come Thursday, Ferrer and her team will no doubt be poised to see if the John Lewis woman is ready for her avant-garde fashion moment.
