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Kinder Aggugini’s Coco Vicious

Kinder Aggugini staged his second runway show in London Saturday afternoon, Sept. 19, and there was great sense of expectation before even one look hit the catwalk.

For starters, Kinder, as he is universally known, had just the right sort of London front-row – from rock royalty to the real thing – and the right collaborators.

Getting creative types like Georgina Goodman, who makes shoes for Alexander McQueen, or Stephen Jones, who keeps John Galliano supplied, was also savvy. Especially, as was the case Saturday, when they both responded with some tremendous ideas, Goodman with fine ribboned and spike-heeled platforms – many in the designer’s signature polka dot - and Jones with beautiful, mega-sized hats

More relevantly, Aggugini delivered in terms of clothes, with his curvy bubble shaped skirts in checks or bouffant skirts in lizard print silk that were somehow Victorian and yet very now. The trick here is in the cut – Aggugini knows how to sculpt a dress so that it flatters a woman’s shape rather than looking like she’s hiding too many pounds.

Aggugini, an Italian who has made his home in London, also cuts a mean jacket, like his posh punk take on the classic Chanel jacket, made in a soft Scottish plaid or just a black wool bouclé tweed, but cut like a junior officer’s jacket, looked classy and new.

The designer said his theme was “the loss of innocence,” when childhood fairy tales suddenly begin to look dark, and that his meeting of distinctively contrasting fashion forms was symbolized by a fictional encounter between Coco Chanel and Sid Vicious.

But like last season, the makeup was less successful. Kinder switched to the great Pat McGrath for spring, but her green-eyed baby doll treatment made an already theatrical show too melodramatic.

Then again, we did love the hair, recalling last year’s surprise hit movie “The Duchess,” starring Keira Knightly, parts of which were filmed in Somerset house. And the duchess was a chic symbol of stylish English eccentricity, whose bravura and sense of color deserves many admirers, just like this show.

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