Basso & Brooke Spring Summer 2006 by Daphne Woo
In their Spring/Summer 2006 show 'Vanity Fair' Basso & Brooke served up what can only be described as real flight of Fashion fancy - a dark surrealist blurring of the American Dream into something that has gone terribly wrong, but of course, manages to look completely fantastical.

Our heroine this season is a disenchanted fifties suburbanite housewife, whose sunny veneer has morphed from everyday into an extraordinary caricature. Taut towering coiffure and pale pink lips and powdered noses, teeter precariously against a backdrop off "pills and pitchers of cocktails before noon," a departure from the medieval madness of Autumn/Winter 2005.

Violins, poodles, bows, muscle cars - American iconography - emphasized through props and prints that have been whimsically inserted into denim and gabardine jackets, colorful leggings, and dresses stacked layer upon layer with puffs of organza and chiffon. But it's Bruno Basso and Christopher Brookes' toying with proportion that really titillates and thrills: we see tightly nipped waists, Superbowl-size shoulder pads, and billowing bottoms - a silhouette one would be hard-pressed to find replicated outside the minds and shows of our two Central Saint Martins graduates.

Our design duo has never been known to shy away from pointed theatrics and overt statements regarding sexual liberation, allegories on power, and subverting the norm. What may not be as readily apparent is the ethos of Basso & Brooke: that each grandiose ensemble is comprised of smaller, highly wearable pieces. The shoes, heels, gloves, hats, down to the handkerchiefs, can all be taken as a stand-alone piece, or in collusion with another - a feat only accomplished by true masters of the mix.

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