After the year we’ve all had, the urge to hunker down under the sheets and stow away from whatever existential woes the news cycle has in store is particularly strong right now. Similar thoughts, it would seem, have been on the minds of Michael Harding and Levi Palmer, whose pre-fall collection takes inspiration from the safety, security, and comfort that comes from swaddling yourself in high threadcount drapes and locking out the big bad world—feelings that are enhanced when in the company of a new bedfellow, as has been the case for Harding of late. “We have an open relationship and I’ve been dating this guy and really experiencing the energy of a new romance, when you’re wrapped up in each other in bed, caught in this protective bubble,” he says.
Channelling the spirit of cuffing season, a good portion of the collection quite directly evokes the designers’ chosen theme—a billowing, button-down frock in cornflower blue poplin, featuring a delicate convex gather at the chest, reads like a sheet hastily, though elegantly, draped over the body in a dash to get the doorbell. The brand’s signature cotton shirt dresses and collar-sleeved caftans come in bed linen stripes, while silk-blend pajama shirts feature subtly off-kilter plackets that introduce a soupçon of directional flair to an otherwise non-descript staple.
Elsewhere, the collection’s lazy-Sunday-with-a-new-lover nostalgia is translated more figuratively, through the worn hand-feel of écru denim fil coupé separates and the dusky ochre, chocolate, and sepia tones of waist-banded crepe tunics and easy-wearing blouses. “I was reading that, apparently, as memories fade, they lose a sense of color,” Palmer reflects. “So even if a memory is quite blissful in the moment, it will fade to a sepia tone.” While the memories created between the sheets may be confined there, these clothes at least offer a more permanent way to carry them with you.
