“If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in.” That fateful line kicked like a mule over the Mains PA as the nails-looking bouncer reached the end of the runway. That runway was divided by scattered mesh fencing and littered with classic London high street detritus: unswept leaves, overflowing trash cans, bollards, and fly posters for club nights. The fearsome bouncer stopped under a sign that read “Club Déjà Vu,” unclipped the velvet rope, then turned to inspect the evening’s punters.
“The clothes were the ticket to get into the clubs to listen to the music that I wanted to listen to,” said Skepta as he discussed this collection preshow. “That’s why the clothes and music go hand in hand for me.” The collection was titled Eurotrash, after the 1993 late-night British TV show hosted for over a decade by Jean Paul Gaultier and Antoine de Caunes, that mixed sex, current affairs, and fashion (YouTube it) in a seditiously tongue-in-cheek manner. Skepta said it was a formatively influential factor in his first teenage forays to clubs.
The collection opened with a warm-up phase of remixed formalwear—an echo of early UK Garage’s “smart” dress codes—that included cropped pin-striped shirts with built-in triple-banded satin cummerbunds, a waistcoat/bulletproof jacket, and five-pocket pants in brushed wool suiting. The Ribena and Wagon Wheel Mains leather jackets and OOPS! (not JOOP!) sheer top were nods to the bootleg culture of rave (and a lyric from Frisco). Sneakers homaged (but by no means bootlegged) the mighty Prada America’s Cup shoe that was such a grail of that moment.
There was a denim set printed in a piebald python pattern with overlaid smiley faces, a decoration that was, remarkably, inspired by a real snake’s pattern. Others in scarlet and black stripes with contrast pockets featured interestingly strapped gathering on jackets and were inspired by the clique suits Skepta said he once favored. A look topped with a claret and blue beanie should have been held at the door (football colors were strictly no entry), yet the cropped white short-sleeve shirt and straight-leg brushed jeans that completed it were totally on code. A black tailored jacket had a cutout smiley carved into its back.
Skepta said it had taken two years to perfect his Mains monogram, which featured tonight in denim sets and on bags. Another perfectly twisted item was the cropped parka/bomber whose faux-fur hood liner was straightened and rotated to wear like a mohawk. This, along with a mod proportioned suit at the top of the show and the Jamie Read–inspired Mains print on jersey, represented a panning out to London’s broader backstory of youth tribes defined by music and style.
Three episodes into this second phase of Mains, Skepta has shown that he’s no transient celebrity fashion dilettante. And chief designer Mikey Pearce, who took a bow alongside the founder, makes for a talented and trusty copilot. It’s a London thing for sure, but the range of reference, wit in design, and theatricality in staging added up to a roadblock Mains session this evening.
