When Christopher Kane debuted his Central Saint Martins MA collection in 2006 – an unabashedly sexy confection of skintight lace dresses in garish hues, embellished with hardware hoops and shimmering Swarovski crystals – he attracted a significant French fan. “Carine Roitfeld has always championed me. She’s shot my clothes, she’s worn them,” Kane smiles of the former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris. “She is a rock star!”
It’s no surprise that Kane’s designs caught the eye of the unofficial queen of seductive chic. Back in the mid-Aughts, when Kane’s classmates were obsessing over the oversized, avant-garde designs of Martin Margiela and Rei Kawakubo, the Scottish outsider was using lace to explore the feminine tropes of Victorian widows and sex workers, obsessing over the ornamentation of Fabergé eggs and the costumes of child beauty pageant stars, and worrying about what his renowned MA tutor Louise Wilson would think of the ruffly, lingerie-esque designs he was dreaming up in his bedroom. (Obviously, she loved them.)
More recently, when Kane was flicking through old copies of Vogue Paris, thinking about who could star in the campaign for his frenzy-inducing comeback collection for Self-Portrait (as the London brand’s first designer “Resident”), he stumbled across an image of glamazon model Doutzen Kroes styled by Roitfeld in one of his designs. “I thought, oh my God, oh my God!” Kane says, gesticulating wildly. “It should be Carine!”
These sorts of exclamations of glee are the norm when Kane and I meet at Self-Portrait’s Farringdon design studio one dark afternoon, where, alongside the brand’s founder and creative director Han Chong, the designer has been delighting for months over samples of ruffled lace and crystal in sickly lilacs, pink and yellow. As an avid Christopher Kane fan who wore the brand’s feather-swathed disco ball dresses on her wedding day, I – like many industry insiders – felt a punch to the gut when the brand shuttered in June 2023. So I can barely contain my excitement. Kane’s 30-piece collection is a maximalist mille-feuille of textures that harks back to his earliest designs: think crystal-strap silk slips, chainmail bodycon dresses accented with lingerie details, peekaboo neckline gowns, and thigh-exposing cut-out pencil skirts. These are pieces that laugh in the face of quiet luxury, made for hailing cabs in heels as you make your way from one champagne-fuelled party to another, where wallflowers are highly unlikely to RSVP. “If I was a girl I would kill for these pieces!” Kane laughs. “They’re hot, they’re sexy, they’re fabulous.”
Chong – who founded Self-Portrait 11 years ago and has transformed his label into a luxury juggernaut that acquired Roland Mouret in 2021 (I spy the French designer scanning clothing rails across the cavernous office) – has always had an affinity for Kane’s early work. “It’s one that people always look back to,” he says. Kane also notes they both have an obsession with crystals and lace, signatures of their respective labels. When Chong considered launching a residency programme, one which would foster collaboration and creativity across a variety of disciplines, he knew he wanted Kane to be his first designer. “It’s about creating a space for creatives and then stepping back from it,” he says. “… Helping them with whatever they want to achieve, and seeing what magic can happen.”
Kane has relished leaning into the collaborative environment that Chong has created, where, surrounded by members of his young team, he presides over a buzzing open plan office where “everyone has an opinion”. “Our former studio in east London was almost like a bunker, where me and my sister [and co-creative director] Tammy would be designing with very little help,” Kane says. “Here, I’ve just been beavering away in front of everyone… you see all the hard work, the bad stuff and the good.” Where Kane’s earliest hand-crafted and Swarovski crystal-embellished designs retailed for upwards of £10,000, direct access to Chong’s network of factories in Asia has also ensured Kane can produce his pieces at a far more affordable price point – notably at a moment that has seen luxury prices soar. “These clothes are affordable, but they are really really built to last,” he says.
For Kane, the joy of his comeback collection lies in the prospect of seeing women wearing his latest collection with wild abandon. His advice? “Add to basket!”
The Self-Portrait Residency with Christopher Kane collection goes on sale at 8pm on 21 November.