Off-beat, On-trend

LONDON, United Kingdom —  Korea-born Rejina Pyo has previously ghosted for a major Italian brand, worked in-house at a Korean department store's private label, spent time on the design team of Christopher Raeburn and worked as Roksanda Ilincic's first assistant designer. The same kind of easily accessible, grown-up glamour aimed at women who want to be tastefully off-beat that imbues Roksanda's collections was the aesthetic mainstay of what was a desirably mature collection.

Well-proportioned and cut throughout, Pyo showed metallic skirts with blue peacoats, exaggerated jumpsuits and cocktail dresses with sheer sleeves and coats (her most successful product category) enlivened with martingales in primary colours and contrasting front-fastening panels.

Yes there was something of Phoebe Philo and Miuccia Prada in the line-up, but Pyo's approach runs deeper than designing in line with the pre-eminences of directional womenswear. "I make sure the collection sells, I imagine beyond the show. What it will look for on the shop floor, how consumers can wear it, [durability], that's all in my process from the beginning," she said, going on to explain that her experience has enabled her to ensure high production values.

And with those in mind, is the woman in Hong Kong’s IT, or London’s Harvey Nichols, or perusing Net-a-Porter (all stockists) really going to care that another designer laid the ground work for her tasteful, if derivative, coats? And even if she does, is she still going to care when she discovers that, priced at £700, they are less than a third of the price?