Recent fashion seasons have seen a move away from oversized shapes and towards figure skimming silhouettes. For some designers, this is uncharted territory, but Mark Fast has designed body-first from the moment he debuted. At a preview of his spring collection, he recalled advice given by his Central Saint Martins tutor, the late Louise Wilson. “People are going to come to you for the bodycon dress,” he recalled, of her encouragement to commit to “what he loves.” Nearly two decades later, he’s still staying true to his original passion.
Franco Rubartelli-shot photographs of the model Veruschka informed Fast’s dusty, desert hued palette. Powdered-tone yarns were knotted and knitted into his signature forms, in webs that splayed across models’ décolletages and torsos. More intricate, tighter weaves were used on minidresses and miniskirts; some came spliced at the sides and featured oscillating, fringed edges on the hemlines.
The Mark Fast woman is daring. Several of these caged knits covered much less of the body than others—the wide-weave shorts and catsuits, for example, had cheeks peeping out; other body parts were covered with carefully-placed panels, akin to “second skins,” as he explained. A select few showcased a new technique, which involved closely threading beads onto each row, adding weight to otherwise barely-there stretch knits––knits which he likened to armor. “I wanted to focus on the craft,” he said.
Bodycon was in the spotlight once again for Mark Fast––alongside forays in jersey and low-slung denim jorts to “bring things back down to earth” for the commercial customer. To summarize, as the designer said at a preview, “everything is tight.”
