Part of the joy of displaying Doro Olvo’s collections is the presentation. Usually Olvo speaks in the form of a parade of models in his clothes, either in his riotously wallpapered bijou showroom in St. James or the equally intimate home of a friend. So seeing her clothes this season at the white-walled Sadie Coles gallery on Bury Street felt almost shocking. “I love that it’s no nonsense, no distractions,” Olu said. “You can really see the clothes against the plain background. It’s so cool to see things in motion like that. Even for me.”
Olvo’s focus on the precision of lines and the structural nuances of his chosen fabrics made sense this season: many looks ditched his signature clashing patterns and were instead cast in head-to-toe black. There was nothing about Olvo’s use of shade, though: a series of looks with large sleeves and pleated skirts were cut from a brocaded silk with a hand-embossed pattern that echoed palm fronds. Another cluster was made from heavily textured black boucle, structured but not stiff, while a handful of separates, including a particularly bright swishy hip-length cape, were adorned with shimmering black sequins, sewn down to reflect light back. “Really, it was using black in a very emotional way,” Ulu said.
Part of the season that got her cogs turning: memories of her mother visiting Jamaican relatives in London in the 1970s, and the way her cousins (young women in their late teens and early 20s, many of whom were part of the Lovers’ rock scene) wore jacket skirts and all jacket-skirt styles inspired by the ’40s. He paraphrased it here. “I didn’t really want to make them feel too nostalgic; to make them quite modern,” he said. He also notes the influence of Jamaican-born British photographer Armitt Francis, whose extraordinary photographs of women in outdoor fashion shoots at Brixton Market in the 70s still feel as fresh and relevant as the day they were taken. In Olvo’s words: “It was beautiful, but it was also kind of determined and cool. Cool in a good way — they weren’t copying what they saw in magazines.”
Overlapping appointments throughout the morning ensured that Oluwo’s presentation was as much a social event for editors and creators of all stripes as it was a showcase for his latest collection. Yet they couldn’t take their eyes off the clothes: everyone was tucking into an argyle wool jersey that Olu had cut into strips and reassembled into a set of hotly desirable hats and scarves. Carefully cut white and toffee brown jackets and dresses with an abstract coral-like print were clear hits. “I love the fact that the presentations are about fashion, but we can also have these conversations about art and politics and film, everything rolled into one,” Olvo said. “Even though it’s work, it doesn’t feel like work.” This is exactly the reason why Olu dresses have such elegance and ease.
