Report by Stevie Brown

In the house of NEWGEN, the new rules for accessories are as follows: they must be big, they must be sculptural and they should look as good in an art gallery as they do on a body. No room for shrinking violets. 

Accessory designer Fred Butler’s luminous, origami-inspired headpieces and breastplates literally jump out of her corner at Somerset House. “In recession times I want my pieces to have the power to transform a look,”   she says, “but I also want people to hang them on the wall –they’re multifunctional.”

Meanwhile, doing her best to bring us her futuristic vision on a giant scale is shoe designer Atalanta Weller. She considers her work as “somewhere between sculpture and footwear”. If her enormous orb shoes and extreme wooden platforms are anything to go by, then scanning the feet at House of Holland’s show tomorrow for her work is a must. 

Also working with catwalk designers, Michael Lewis has provided Luella, Jaeger and Loewe in Paris with their runway heels. Not bad going, two seasons in. Lewis’s main collection offers up sharp, sculptural footwear for ‘dark ladies’ at his fantasy shop stand. 

Darker still and just a little bit twisted is Dominic Jones. His claw, fang and thorn-inspired pieces are so wonderfully sharp the police would probably classify them as dangerous weapons. Truth be told, though, the real talk of the area is not about trends or other such trivial natter – it’s still all about NEWGEN’s exciting Friday-night outing to Number 10 Downing Street. Makes us wonder if Gordon and Sarah have maybe commissioned something for the mantelpiece…

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