Frills and thrills as Brown Thomas shows off spring/summer collection

With its winter sale ending this week, Brown Thomas’s breakfast fashion show, held yesterday in its stylish new restaurant, introduced the new spring season with a bigger than usual line-up of showpiece items from international designers.

Opening with Mary Katrantzou’s full skirted skater dresses in distorted floral prints and closing with Celine’s painterly graffiti motifs, some 90 distinctive outfits were presented embracing most of the spring/summer trends.

They include a continuing focus on prints, like those of Peter Pilotto and Erdem, a lot of summer whites and pastels, a mix of short and mid-calf lengths – the latter notably at Marni – and any amount of luxury takes on sportswear, particularly blousons and bomber jackets. One from Stella McCartney, for example, was in a snakeskin print.

The overall look from this diverse presentation, to judge from short, shapely, twisted dresses (Roland Mouret, Lanvin), pleated skirts (Stella McCartney, Celine, JW Anderson), cocoon shapes (Balenciaga) and frills and ruffles (Kenzo) is of full-on femininity.

Pastel colours underscore the impression. Standout pieces that were chic rather than sugary were the coats from Dolce & Gabbana and Carven in sorbet shades and exquisitely tailored dresses perfect for a summer wedding.

Chloe’s layered white three-piece ensembles and laced dresses were equally fresh and simple though, like everything else, hardly everyday wear. No prices were given.

To brighten the mood evening shine has been brought into daywear, another strong trend, which showed in Lanvin’s metallic red dresses and Pilotto’s silvered peplum tops.