Fashion is officially teetering on the precipice of a 00s revival, and what a scary thought that can be. But through the lens of Faustine Steinmetz, it’s a much redeemed proposition. The designer, who has been showcasing through NEWGEN since SS15, affirmed her brand identity this season by continuing her essays through the medium of denim (aka the fabric of 00s society). 

A vivarium was erected by Steinmetz’s frequent collaborator on set design, Thomas Petherick, inspired by the sensual portraiture of contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft’s Sister Calendar (2000). Each girl was presented in tableau, languidly draped within a box of her own beside a museum caption to describe the laboured techniques at play in her outfit. Flooded in deep, oceanic blue lighting, this vivarium might have been Sea World. The clothes had these references, too. The slick curvature of the style lines, frothing ropes of threaded cotton, crinkled tulle, cascades of swarovski, shards of crystals growing from the surface of the clothes like rocks overgrown with ice. True to Steinmetz’s investment in hand-executed processes, these were constructed with recycled foam, sculpted, carved and doused in oil paints. But that which felt organic and pure was deliberately at play with notions of vulgarity and ostentation: the overshot Steinmetz monogram, the overt and glitzy displays of sexuality – and of course, washed blue denim upon blue denim upon blue denim à la Britney and JT.