Millennial lover models prepare for 90s club classics and technicolour dream fur coats, beneath the underground disco at the RSA House for Clio Peppiatt’s AW17 collection. The converted tunnelled ceilings turn into a trance where you will find intricate embroidery, embellishments and hand illustrated prints — based around the theme of the love rat. Staying true to the romanticism in her collection, femininity is explored escaping away from the scepticism of finding true love in a modern society — “dodging the love rats in a star crossed millennial.”
Clio Peppiatt displays a bold attitude to streetwear by bringing silk and heavy denim to life and varying the colour palette between the clothing and hair and makeup. Electrifying blue lashes and permanent wavy curls (better known as the infamous 90s perm) create a whimsical look. T-shirts and sweatshirts paired off with the classic Converse allows casualness. The illustrative rat rimmed around mini skirts and patched on jumpsuits were ever-present, with scrunched up flyers decorated on the walls and floor as a sign to beware of the heartbreaking rodent. Clio Peppiatt’s collection naturally focuses on female empowerment and depicts the emotions of a ‘girl gang’ who stick together through fashion. With playfulness and an underlying tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, the Love Rat collection represents the amorous feelings we may feel in an ideal world which is not destroyed by the digital age we live in.
Words by Dayna Dibua
Images by Georgia Silitoe
