Tome Spring/Summer 2016.

Thurs. 09/10/2015.





Tome Spring/Summer 2016.

It would be incredibly refreshing if Tome's Ryan Lobo and Ramon Martin didn't fuss up their clothes so much. A nice flourish here and there is always appreciated, but with every artsy installment in the "Tome Show" Lobo and Martin seem to exaggerate and overdo things simply best left alone and to their own devices. That problematic fixation on Zhuzhing up pieces already quite fanciful to start with, leads to an overwrought nature to many items. Usually, the duo find idiosyncratic artists and intellectual types to glean inspiration from, and this is where oft times, the tendency to overthink and over design comes from. This Spring they found Australian visual Artist Fiona Hall as their touchstone. It lead to some nifty exits, and some serious drama in a few outfits that were genuinely, brilliant. Yet, that niggling sense of an innate lack of restraint caused much of what was paraded down the catwalk to fall into the category of needlessly tricky.

The simplest offerings were definitely the most potent, the opening section in Black and White was quite near flawless and a Citron Yellow dress over a White Lace top was an exceptional exercise in simplicity and refinement, but executed in the vocabulary of Martin and Lobo. A Glacier Blue gown on Supermodel of olde, Claudia Mason, was a perfect study in artistry meeting fashion in equal proportions. I don't want any one going away from this review thinking the collection wasn't likable, indeed it was, but the takeaway should be that Martin and Lobo could do themselves, and in that, their customer, so much more a service, if they reined in their more esoteric and extrovert leanings and focused on just one or two strokes of genius. If not, their collections will continue to be shrouded with a miasma of artsy high minded-ness that might alienate customers that don't want to think too deeply about their clothes, or work that hard to wear them!





That's All.





Bye4Now!