By choosing Hazel Lavery, Eileen Gray and Irene Gilbert as muses for his current collection, couturier Richard Lewis has gone for women of outstanding style. He feels they are ideal representatives of the century. And one could certainly wish there were more like them today.
Sharon Bacon, his living muse who appears in the fashion photography, is somewhat similar in type and, at the showing, helped to bring his clothes to life.
There are only three colour themes in the collection, black and amber, blackberry, and raspberry, and there are only two fabrics, jersey and silk.
Little goes a long way, and the restraint pays off. These are sophisticated and discreet clothes that, even when replicating the long silk coat with fur cuffs and collar that Lady Lavery wore, or the 1950s twinset and full skirt of Irene Gilbert, are thoroughly appropriate for today's women: funny that, but there you are. Eileen Gray might be responsible for inspiring the double jersey coat and trousers, something a woman of her time might have worn in Paris.
The clothes are simply cut, and occasionally "finished" with mother-of-pearl buttons. Body-skimming jersey, or boucle, dresses and matching coats mean there are no day-time skirts, and evening dressing is mainly about adding a magnificent silk velvet throw, hand-painted by Bernadette Madden, around the shoulders. For very grand occasions a silk coat and palazzos worn with a crushed silk jacket is in order. The crushing of the silk is one of Lewis's secrets.
But there is nothing secret about the results: this was Richard Lewis at his best: restrained, but, as always, cleverly using his materials and outstanding with colour.