Spring has come at last for Sid Neigum. The Alberta designer’s signature goth style surprisingly gave way to a flurry of airy gowns and separates this season. Yesterday’s show—part of The Collections shown at the Burroughes building by The Fashion Collective—still had that trademark Sid toughness: the serious draping, the asymmetricality, the subdued colour palette, a lack of adornment or fussiness. But there was an elegance, a certain louche chic to the pieces that showcased yet another skill from the Toronto Fashion Incubator New Label Award winner: subtlety.
While Neigum may have embraced some Matrix-level theatricality in the past, the whisper-thin shirt-dresses, slouchy gray blazers, and the long-in-the-front/short-in-the-back piece with cut-out shoulders gliding up and down the runway showed a designer edging toward the ouevre of, say, Chloé or Céline rather than away from it. Scared of a more dramatic Neigum neckline? Many of the pieces this season were almost demure, thanks to their high collars; try the double-layered turtleneck cream minidress. (Or, if you are, in fact, in the market for something a little more décolleté, he showed several ensembles with a serious plunging neckline, while still draping and folding swathes of Kawakubo-approved material to the side of each perfectly hidden breast.) More typical Neigum armour—like a sharp-shouldered blazer or stern black shift—came out, too, but it was the new, more complex femininity swishing down the runway that has us looking forward to springtime with Sid.
