The work that is most exciting to me this season is that which is based on expert patternmaking. The art of puzzling how best to have fabric work in tandem with or around the body, rather than relying on decoration or logos, is foundational. It also requires a deep familiarity with materials and their responsiveness. Sharon Wauchob is one such fabric whisperer who wields her shears with precision. Her mastery of the bias cut is complete and it is complemented with a knack for unstuffy tailoring.
That oblique line—and fall’s spiral cut—are metaphors for the designer’s new, singular path in fashion. It’s been almost a decade since Wauchob moved from Paris to London, abandoned the runway, and went into reset mode. Drawing on her past experiences, the designer works closely and collaboratively with specialist ateliers, most of them local, to co-develop not only garments, but a whole new approach to fashion. Rather than engaging in the chaos and flux of constant reinvention, Wauchob is focused on evolving her hero or icon pieces while slowly introducing new ones into the fold. Time is this designer’s ally. Items that have become best sellers, she reported, often weren’t so immediately. “In a different environment those pieces wouldn’t sustain their life,” the designer said, but now she can watch them “grow to their full potential.” To be clear, Wauchob’s slower take on fashion is not akin to listening to a song on repeat. In reworking a piece she’s not just changing a color or a fabric; rather she’s always going back to the why, the reason for a garment’s existence.
One of Wauchob’s goals was to approach function “in an almost artistic creative way.” A travel ready coat that was as light as the wind was made of a wafer-fine wool with a silk chiffon lining that hung loose in the arm so that if you rolled up the outer sleeve the ghost-like inner one would be exposed. That piece achieved “the idea of intimacy expressed outwardly” that the designer wrote of in her notes.
Wauchob also wanted to produce not only garments that can be worn in different ways—a marabou tunic (with hand-placed feathers) for example, can also be worn as a skirt—but hybrid accessory garments (accessaments?). “I think if you really know the product and know how it is constructed or know the origins of where it came from, there’s a versatility in what you can do with it.” she said. A few seasons ago she introduced an outsized scrunchie that could be worn as a peplum or otherwise arranged on the body. For fall there were bandanas to layer, as well as scarves attached to a button-down shirt and a sweater. A spangled neck tie doubled as a necklace. Also neck-centric was the opening look, a satin-front, wool back coat with an integrated double-sided long, wafty scarf. A pair of carrot-leg pants was constructed with folds in such a way that eliminated the need for side seams, and another topper in inky lacquered black with hand-applied strass bore a resemblance to a coromandel screen, a portable, folding device used to divide open areas. Wauchob isn’t one for putting up walls, rather she sculpts soft, airy scrim-like garments in which the separation between masculine and feminine, the boudoir and the boulevards, dissolves.