Going through Ponte’s lookbook was a bit like being hit by lightning in an anime—electrifying but causing no bodily harm. Harry Pontefract is a rare talent with exacting standards who pushes materials to their limits. His quest this season was to conjure “blurred memories… and a sort of faded opulence and quiet decadence,” he said on a call.
There was nothing faded but much that was ethereal about the opening look, which was cloud-like and meant to capture the feeling of a charcoal drawing from the ’50s, something gestural and with no clear boundaries. “I didn’t want you to know where the dress began and the person began,” said Pontefract of this wondrous creation that had an almost Belle Epoch lavishness. “Operatic” is how the designer described this corseted dress and stole made of the fleece of about 10 sheep. Pontefract, who has a name befitting a knight (in fact it was first recorded circa 1100) actually met these creatures via Zoom while working closely with two shepherdesses. The fleeces were hand felted and stitched; a hairdresser spent almost a week brushing this ensemble out to achieve peak fluff.
In contrast, the second look was one of sharp, linear, exactitude: a pair of jeans made from existing garments that were completely stripped of all stitches, grommets, etc. and starched into paper-like perfection. A jock strap kept them looking suspended in mid air (a tank similarly defied gravity later on). “It was quite beautiful just to do something as generic as denim,” said Pontefract, who noted that time will alter and soften the silhouette, so creases will fall into drapes, in a cycle mimicking that of nature. Further on there were jeans with an exposed waist-to-under-rise zipper, and a wrist-revealing shrunken jacket that altered the posture of the model, drawing his shoulders close and inwards and creating a contrast between the model’s vulnerable posture and the overt sexuality of this cruising get-up. Its counterpart was a smart smoking, generously cut, that recalled the vintage tux Pontefract used to wear on the regular when enrolled at CSM.
The designer served grapes, minus the wrath, in the form of an armor-like dress and a jewelry-like halter shown with a wrap-skirt made from a pair of pinstriped trousers, which tempered the Dionysian vibes. Celebratory in a different way were the dresses made of mylar balloons in odd, off colors: one looked almost as if Eve and the Serpent had become one.
