“One More Time With Feeling” was the name Daniel Gayle chose for his spring collection for Denzil Patrick. It marks the first time the 41-year-old London designer has put on a runway show in his own city, and serves as something of a homecoming.
Gayle played with the uniforms of the British working class and mixed them with notions of leisure and hobbies (spy the trumpets and the bright orange swimming armbands). Construction worker donkey jackets and bus driver shirts were enlivened with jacquard prints of acanthus flowers, braided ropes that recalled aiguillettes were bound across T-shirts, and tracksuits and tailoring appeared in a summery cocktail of blush, cream, and minty blue. The clothes spoke to the pragmatism of blue-collar workers, but with a flourish of delicacy and playfulness. “The idea is that everyone recognizes the clothes, but we just start to twist them and bring them into a different kind of sensibility,” said Gayle backstage.
Overall, this was collection rooted in sentimentality (helped along by a softly orchestral rendition of Pulp’s “Common People” that played over the finale), but there’s enough creative tension between Gayle and his husband James Bosley, who serves as the brand’s artistic director, that it manages to stop short of soppiness. Bosley is the hopeless romantic in the partnership, while Gayle pulls it back to earth. “I get obsessed over the sort of the costume level of detail, but Daniel [who has a background working at Jonathan Saunders, Kenzo, and Victoria Beckham] is well-trained in driving it down into a compatible and relevant product,” said Bosley.
Their partnership has created a sense of Britishness that, though nostalgic, somehow feels fresh and optimistic. Ahead of the general election on July 4th, in which the Tory party is expected to be ousted after a 14 year reign of misery, there’s a feeling in the UK that things can’t possibly get any worse. It’s hard for everyone right now, and the young British fashion designer that’s thriving rather than surviving is nowhere to be found. Can we let ourselves believe that better days are on the way? Denzil Patrick makes that glimmer of hope, however tentative, seem a little more real.