PPQ pays tribute to its Nineties roots at London Fashion Week

Fashion Week London SS 2011 PPQ front row Eliza Doolittle, Michelle Williams, Shini and Paloma Faith PPQ brought the first day of London Fashion Week to a close this evening with an uplifting show that was rich in legacy and costume drama. Excited cheers filled the packed room at Somerset

House as the lights went up to reveal this energetic collection, a fusion of chic pastels, vivid prints, spray-on denim and classic black whose influences roamed across the board from nineties music culture to swarthy hero Zorro.

This being PPQ's 10 year anniversary at Fashion Week, design duo Amy Molyneaux and Percy Parker looked to the label's roots, unveiling a print created from the PPQ monogram  - featuring on satin pyjama suits, cowboy shirts and pencil skirts - and revived their love for denim with a new line created in a partnership with Lee, the resulting super-skinny spray-ons given the PPQ treatment with screen-printed heritage crest and gold embroidery.
A hint that the hip young things that have been PPQ's most ardent fans are coming of age was evident in the grown-up tailoring: next summer, it seems, will be for the sophisticates, not the slouches.

Authoritative gold buttons adorned cotton boucle jackets and bustier dresses in a gamut of pastel shades, while playsuits and mini dresses were tailored with neat lapels, covered buttons and pintucks.
Contrast, as ever, is king and as a foil to all those soft ice cream hues came the eccentric icing on the catwalk cake - PPQ's take on Zorro, which translated into billowing blouses in diaphanous organza tucked into those tighter-than-tight jeans, gold-tipped spike stilettos (courtesy of Michael Lewis) and topped off with extraordinary hat and mask.

Certainly PPQ regular Peaches Geldof - who joined Erin O'Connor and VV Brown on the front row - approved, saying after the VitaminWater-sponsored show that she 'loved' the collection, naming the white bustier and purple bell-shaped dress as her top picks.
'I love that they've gone back to doing denim, which is where they started, and that they've brought back their classic PPQ silhouettes,' she added.
'I styled the show on Percy!' Amy Molyneaux jokes backstage, gesturing at her understated design partner standing by her side, sipping champagne from a plastic cup, and looking very much the artful scruff in grey jacket and turned-up jeans - certainly a long way from the vivid prints and skinnies from the show.
'Seriously though, it was based on the styles we wore in the Nineties, and the music we were listening to back then. It's also that it is our tenth anniversary showing at fashion week, so we came up with the monogram using our initials and based everything around that,' she adds.

'We brought the jeans back because everyone has been asking for that for yonks,' Amy continues. 'It made sense to work with Lee - they're professional denim makers. When you're making that many pairs of jeans, it's always better to work with someone who's got a big factory.'
The two say the buzz surrounding this season's Fashion Week is bigger than ever - partly, they say, thanks to the relocation of the event to Somerset House.

'Moving here has been the key,' says Percy.
'There's much more going on, you can hang out,'  adds Amy. 'When it was at the Natural History Museum, you always felt like you were in the way. It wasn't conducive to running the shows. Here the British Fashion Council is on site, it's all happening.

Of course, there are some who attribute part of the buzz surrounding British fashion to its newest ambassador - the Duchess of Cambridge.
'It's amazing that Kate's wearing British - it's incredible, and fantastic for the High Street,' says Percy.
So has she worn PPQ yet? 'I haven't got her number,' admits Percy - before Amy cuts in with her ultimate outfit for the future Queen Consort: I can see Kate in the little black boucle cotton number with the gold buttons on it,' she muses.
'Or maybe the unitard and pyjama slacks set around the palace, knocking about in that.
'And definitely the Zorro hat for riding.'