After unveiling the Victoria & Albert’s spiny, architectural Christmas tree in December, Gareth Pugh returned to the museum tonight to show his fall 2015 collection, which was backdropped by a fiery, apocalyptic fashion film. Usually, the museum’s ground-floor space plays host to “Fashion In Motion”—a retrospective mash-up of a designer’s archives—an exercise, although unrelated, that happened to coincide with Pugh’s return to the London schedule and his ten-year anniversary in business. It’s also perhaps why the show felt like his greatest hits revisited, albeit underscored by the rousing theme of British patriotism which saw Aymeline Valade onscreen hacking off her blonde mane before painting herself Carrie-like with St. George’s bloody cross. It informed the models’ heraldic accoutrements that included crested helmets and armor-like breastplates, while others again got the bondage militia treatment via sculpted dog collars (not studded, mind you, but of a more veterinary persuasion).
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