Fashion: Textural feeling

When mainstream fashion's at an impasse, as it is at the moment, a little detour into the strange but different is often a means of transition. Running concurrently with the retreat into hippiedom is a strain of experimental design that concentrates on fabrics and textures. At the last collections, some of the off-off South Molton Street designers showed the way for 1993. Helen Storey discovered an acetate version of Fortuny's famous pleated silk, Pam Hogg a new stretch and slash technique, John Richmond revived the fringe, Michiko Koshino the laced- corset back and Red or Dead produced rope-as-fabric - better known to some of us as macrame.

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