Brocade: The Further Adventures of the New Romantic

Back in March I blogged about the rising trend of New Romanticism. At the time the blokes who were willing to go all out on New Rom frills were few and far between. Since then things have got more dramatic. I reckon there's probably some truth in the claim that our depressed economic state has activated our rebellious streak and the pomp and frills are largely a way of us sticking two fingers up at the doom-laden papers and TV news. Of course there would have been other non-retro ways of showing this extravagance. But the New Rom look allows us to further our current love affair with all things 80s in a way that simply buying the latest shade of Balenciaga Giant Lattice City bag wouldn't.



From Tara Farbahi's Somerset College graduation collection

Brocade has also been kicking around on the fringes for a couple of seasons but now it's getting a sudden extra lease of life by striking a deal with New Rom shapes. Check out Tara Farbahi's graduate collection, which I shot on the catwalk at Earl's Court last week. Of course these looks are really dependent on layering and as such are pretty impractical for summer clubbing. The fact that they're still growing in popularity, even as the temperature is increasing, suggests that come autumn they'll expand further, venturing out of London's more creative polysexual nights and onto the high streets and into the more straight-edged clubs.




A couple at House of Diehl's Style Wars event at Proud Galleries, Camden. http://www.houseofdiehl.com/
http://www.proud.co.uk/



Rosie Borcott-Brown's collection at Alternative Fashion Week April 2009
http://www.alternativearts.co.uk/AFW



Kashpoint party at Cable for Mark Moore and Jerry Bouthier's great new monthly/occasional night Can Can at Cable. Details at Can Can on Facebook or here http://www.cable-london.com/

Link back to the original post on New Rom:
http://manaboutworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-era-of-new-romantic.html

On the slate...