KANE, CHRISTOPHER
BRAND AND FASHION DESIGNER , K
Christopher Kane is a Scottish designer. After collaborating with Versace in 2006 she founded her highly experimental clothing line
British fashion designer, Christopher Kane was born on the 26th of July 1982 in Newarthill, Scotland. After six years of study in fashion design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, he worked in the style office of Giles Deacon and Russell Sage.
Winner of the Lancôme Color Award in 2005, his graduation collection was awarded the Harrods Design Award which, in addition to a cash prize, offered him the opportunity to exhibit in the windows of the London department store during the fashion week in March 2006. In February 2008 he also created a limited edition lip gloss with Lancôme. The finished product, called Burns Night, is tangerine color and the packaging features an illustration of Kane printed on the tube.
The brand
Christopher and his sister Tammy
In 2006, he established the foundations of his company together with his sister Tammy, an expert in fabrics, and won the Young Designer of the Year of the Scottish Fashion Award. Her first independent fashion show consisted of a collection of bodycon dresses in neon colors, presented in the Spring/Summer 2006 season at the London Fashion Week.
Kane ss06
Manolo Blahnik collaborated in the March 2007 collection for the design of footwear; Beth Ditto and Kylie Minogue, iconic British pop stars, wore the clothes. Kane’s success was explosive and in 2007 he was named New Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. 2007 turned out to be a very prolific year: he created limited edition jewelery for Swarovski – with the Purple Rock necklace and pendant modelled by Naomi Campbell – and launched a capsule collection for Topshop.
Versace
The neon-coloured stretch lace dresses were noticed by Donatella Versace who first called him to take care of the Atelier Versace line and the Versace collection of shoes and accessories and then, in 2009, he was commissioned to design the Versus line by Versace. His spring 2009 collection broke all records and sold out within 24 hours of launching on Net-a-Porter. The designer left the helm of Versus in 2012.
versus by kane
Design Aesthetics
Symbol of his material experimentation, in August 2011 he collaborated with the Scottish cashmere label Johnstons to create 50 limited edition crochet biker jackets. Sensory stimulation is at the heart of Kane’s collections. In fact, for the autumn/winter 2012-13 fashion show he chose to perfume his exhibition space with the Feuille de Lavande fragrance to contrast the harsh femininity of his collection.
Kane’s stylistic code is linked to the unusual use of fabrics and prints and to a typically English idea of bourgeois elegance. Known for experimenting with leather, plastic, crochet, he is adept at mixing different elements. London Fashion Week shows such as Liquid Ladies, Sex in Nature and More Joy, all unpredictable and provocative, have gone down in history.
While maintaining a certain experimentalism, Christopher Kane’s collections always differ from each other. His fourth collection is in fact characterized by layered organza dresses, plastic sequins, cashmere tops and dresses and jackets embellished with coarse decorations. The success among fashion critics is immediate to the point that the press flocked to the catwalks to see the young prodigy’s creations. The Christopher Kane collections are distributed internationally and sold on Net-a-porter.com, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Dover Street Market, Browns, Liberty.
He was the winner of the Vogue Fashion Fund and 5 British Fashion Awards, including New Designer of the Year, British Fashion Designer of the Year and Designer’s Designer Award 2020.
Acquisition by Kering
In January 2013 51% of the label was acquired by the luxury conglomerate Kering. However in 2018, Kane repurchased the entire property.
Also read:
Nicola Brognano’s story in the Encyclopedia of Fashion
