PREEN THROUGH THE SEASONS

Preen by Thornton Bregazzi working its way through its signature repertoire of florals and dippy-hemmed dresses...  The submerged meanings are important to these designers—they’ve gotten into the habit of leaving photographs of stacks of their reading matter on benches at their shows.

SS18

Thornton and Bregazzi are great at pretty dresses- the fluttery, asymmetrical, ruffled and printed ones in dusty pastels and flashes of silver beading reiterated that. Bragazzi asserted, "I love the idea of a woman being able to stand up and deliver a lecture in front of a room full of men while wearing a beautiful floaty dress if she wants to. Why not?".

  

AW17

The Preen by Thornton Bregazzi audience, built over more than 20 years, appreciates being brought along with the label’s recognizable narratives. This Fall collection was mostly a case of Preen by Thornton Bregazzi’s continuing success with modern-romantic takes on dippy-hemmed flower-print midi dresses and their tomboy-cool takes on tailoring, the atmosphere of the outside world was in the air here, too.

     SS17

In probably the best collection of their career... which went even further along the line of neo-mystic styling to concoct beautiful dresses from silver glitter, chiffon, flower prints, shirring and pentagrams. One particularly lovely dress, the colour of mushrooms- magic ones, no doubt- had a pattern of velvety flowers and a dusting of iridescent embroidery, or "crushed rainbow" as Bregazzi called it. 

     

AW16

The Preen by Thornton Bregazzi audience, built over more than 20 years, appreciates being brought along with the label’s recognizable narratives. This Fall collection was mostly a case of Preen by Thornton Bregazzi’s continuing success with modern-romantic takes on dippy-hemmed flower-print midi dresses and their tomboy-cool takes on tailoring, the atmosphere of the outside world was in the air here, too.

        SS16

Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi are a couple who know how to put an English edge on a ruffle and a flash of sex in a fluttery print frock. The opening dress, a dusty pink with sprigged flowers and a falling-off-shoulder line, captured the fluidity of movement in a Stevie Nicks sort of way... it was, as always, a confident showing of what their audience likes best.

       

Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi like to throw a lot of ideas into their Preen collections. This time out, those ideas clustered around a single theme- "dark romance" as they put it- and served the overall purpose of giving '70s-era hippie chic an urbane update.

  

SS15

There was a heady mix of influences in the latest Preen collection, a dynamic, high-energy outing to be sure.

   

The frothy tesseract-print dresses, the parkas with gargantuan fur hoods, the looks in a cheering clementine hue.

   

SS14

The Preen show this morning opened on a familiar note: an all-white ensemble, which featured a digital placement print fusing cuboid forms and florals. That look augured a collection that leaned hard on the Preen signatures. 

   

AW13

Thornton and Bregazzi were trying to inject a dark, grubby, punk-inflected energy into luxe, dressed-up clothes. That's not an easy marriage to pull off, and Bregazzi and Thornton responded to the difficulty by making it overt and giving their looks a split personality. 

SS13

This show had effort in spades—the clothes were the serious focus. And since the designers' time showing across the pond, their ability to produce clothing has sharpened considerably. There was precision in these silhouettes, in the crispness of a shirt or a wide, masculine-style kimono sleeve—little touches that mean so much when producing high-level fashion.

 

AW12

For the strong women of today, Thornton and Bregazzi cut the inevitable high romance of botanical flower and butterfly prints by paneling them into dresses with sharp blocks of a very flat matte fabric they referred to as scuba wool, and generally manipulating them by printing the motifs on sequins and embroidering over them with tarnished silver beading.

    SS12

This was their most girly collection to date, what with all those traditional feminine hallmarks… Still, this pair never serves anything straight-up… But compared to seasons past, where they've explored deconstructing dresses and skirts and cleverly collaging them back together, these silhouettes were relatively streamlined.
   

AW11

Today’s stellar show followed suit, pushing their sharp fusions of constructed menswear tailoring with fluid womenswear elements- often all in a one-piece look – into even more exquisitely wrought territory.
    

SS11

Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi evolved the elegantly deconstructed masculine-tailoring-spliced-with-femininity story they started to tell last season. You had to check out the models both coming and going to as not to miss a cutaway back or the swish of pleats escaping a structured skirt.

  AW10

Talented design duo Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi had taken their work to a new level… this vein of sexy subversion was carefully laid into gorgeously traditional suiting cut with a distinctly mannish proportion. It was polished and grown-up, but also preserved this label's cool factor.

 

SS10

This dress-heavy collection was very romantic, infinitely more sophisticated than kinky. It featured many marvels of sculptural construction, with single pieces stitched from up to ten different fabrics.

  

AW09

It won’t be a surprise when the frocks that closed the show with their swirls of rainbow-bright stretch hammered silk and white mesh insets land on the red carpet.

SS09

Tiny dresses in white, red or black, some with caged backs, laces crisscrossing the shoulder blades, others with mesh slips peeking a few inches below the hem, followed by weightless silk or chiffon cut into drawstring-waist dresses and anoraks that floated on the breeze in the model’s wake.

  

AW08

Bregazzi and Thornton have begun staking out as their own territory what once belonged solely to Stella McCartney and her special brand of laid-back cool. There’s no denying the appeal of clothes with such a sexy sense of ease.

SS08

If today’s show didn’t blow away those expectations, it offered more than enough reason to extend the brand’s visa. What Thornton and Bregazzi do best is a mash-up of classics: silk blouses, trousers and bathing suits like the showstopper worn by Anja Rubik.

   

AW07

They clearly put a vast amount of work into the horizontal pleating effects they used throughout the show, and into the huge number of fawn, purple and black variations on their theme… their large, round-shouldered bubble-gum-pink blousons; cowl- hooded knits; and zip-bisected body dresses.

SS07

Preen also explored the possibilities of spirally bandaged second-skin silhouettes. The best were wrapped bands of black elastic, layered pinafore-fashion over crisp white shirts… Moments like that demonstrated how this duo has grown up.

AW06

Preen has developed a strong way with colour; the show’s high point was a passage of bright red that gave graphic punch to its silhouettes.
  

SS06

But there was a rare, serene sensation of nowness running through Preen’s Spring Show. In the spiralling atrium of the new mayor’s City Hall, with a sunny view of the Tower of London across the Thames, Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton sent out a cool collection of drapey, dusty pinks and pearly beiges that ramped up their reputation to another level.

AW05

The London Portobello Road couple Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton deserve respect… Their Preen collections now look almost unrecognizably clean and polished, though still reaching for an experimental kind of expression.

SS05

Steering Preen clear of gritty street deconstructionism, toward something softer and more evolved… those pieces now resolve themselves into gentle wrap dresses, skirts with floppy volumes, and cascading details of chopped up ribbing in the back of jackets that might almost be called frills. The fabrics have been upgraded as well, to include silk jersey, linen and cashmere.

AW04

Thea Bregazzi and Justin Thornton are generally thought of as gritty Portobello deconstructionists… the designers applied the haute bourgeois aesthetic in their own way, and put a refreshingly polished accent on their usual streetwise repertoire.
  

SS04

For spring, the duo reconfigured used leather bomber jackets and cotton t shirt materials into a body-conscious, lingerie-influenced collection that retained a gritty urban edge.

           AW03

Preen's clothes are clearly meant to stand out: Slouch tweed pants were paired with windowpane button-downs with gathered or ballooned sleeves creating the top-heavy silhouette that remained a constant throughout the collection. 

  

Bringing a low-key design interest to the staples of everyday dressing, Preen recast urban utility wear as marly sweats, leg hugging suede cargo pants and ribbed tanks cut sway or worn in multiples… Justin and Thea can rethink cut and beat up fabric with the best of them.