The work I’m most excited about this season is the one based on expert pattern making. Rather than relying on embellishments or logos, the art of wondering how best to make the fabric work with or around the body is fundamental. It also requires a deep familiarity with the content and their responses. Sharon Wauchob is one such fabric whisperer who wields her scissors with precision. His mastery of bias is complete, and complemented with a mastery of uncluttered tailoring.
That diagonal line—and the spiral cut of fall—is a metaphor for the designer’s new, singular path in fashion. It’s been nearly a decade since Wauchob moved from Paris to London, ditched the runway, and went into reset mode. Drawing on his past experiences, Wauchob works closely and collaboratively with specialist ateliers, most of them local, to create a whole new approach to not only apparel but fashion. Instead of engaging in the chaos and flux of constant reinvention, Wauchob is focusing on developing her hero or icon pieces while slowly introducing new ones into the fold. Time is this designer’s ally. He reported that items that became bestsellers often weren’t so quickly. “In a different environment, those pieces wouldn’t be able to sustain their lives,” she said, but now she can see them “growing to their full potential.” Clearly, Wauchob’s laid-back approach to fashion isn’t the same as listening to a song on repeat. In recreating a piece, she’s not just changing colors or fabrics. Rather, she is always going back to the cause and reason for the garment’s existence.
One of Wauchob’s goals was to approach function in an “almost artistic, creative way.” A travel-ready coat that was light as air, made of a wafer-fine wool with a silk chiffon lining that hung loosely at the arm so that if you rolled up the outer sleeves, a ghostly interior was revealed. The piece achieved “the idea of intimacy expressed outwardly,” the designer wrote in his notes.
Wauchob wanted to create not only clothes that could be worn in different ways—a marabou tank (with hand-stitched feathers), for example, could also be worn as a skirt—but also hybrid accessory garments (accessories?) “I think if you really know the product and know how it’s constructed or know where it comes from, what you can do with it. It has potential,” he said. A few seasons ago it introduced an oversized scrunchie that could be worn as a peplum or layered over the body. A bandana for layering for fall, as well as a button-down shirt and scarf paired with a sweater. A tie stretched around the neck doubled as a necklace. There was also an early form centered on the neck, with a satin front, an integrated double-sided long, wool-back coat with a wafting scarf. A pair of carrot-leg trousers were made with folds that eliminated the need for side seams, and another topper in ink-lacquered black with hand-applied straw resembled a Coromandel screen, a portable folding device used to divide open areas. Wauchob is not for putting up walls. She sculpts soft, airy, frilly fabrics that dissolve the separation between masculine and feminine, boudoir and boulevard.
