BEAUTY: Clothing--Mithridate

The fairly new label Mithridate, headed by founder and creative director Demon Zhang showed an intriguing Fall-Winter 2021-2022 collection at London Fashion Week. At once simple and ornate (somehow, yes), the collection's lookbook and video were shot and filmed at an English country house but there is something--and this is just me--vaguely Russian about the silhouettes and decorative choices of the garments. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels beautifully Romantic and wintery while still being fashion forward: look at the voluminous bells on the men's trousers, the A-line coats, and the absolutely gorgeous embroidery of thorny branches and what looks like bejeweled bloody slashes (do take a look at the video!). I also love the botanical prints for men.

The official website offers scant little about the sense of the collection:

AW21: Automatiste

Mithridate’s Autumn Winter 2021 collection, ‘Automatiste’, is a profoundly personal response from founder and creative director Demon Zhang to her experience of the restrictive conditions of 2020. Throughout the months of isolation and uncertainty in Guangzhou, Zhang plumbed her subconscious for inspiration, embarking on a journey to discover her inner-self at a time when travel and external exploration were out of the question.

https://www.mithridate.uk/