DAVID KOMA AUTUMN/WINTER 2015-16 READY-TO-WEAR LONDON FASHION WEEK

With enough heft behind him to give his pieces a Rolls-Royce polish of pristine fabrication, David Koma’s highly focused philosophy could be a winner. Flared sleeves, kinkily touched top-to-bottom zippers, cutouts, and Barbara Brown undulations were the raw materials for his body-con yet elastically freeing dresses.

Koma’s patch-pocket orange minidress with meander relief was a fine thing, as was his saucy Dracula curtain-raiser. A series of pieces defined by push-and-click belts—first at the waist, then around the legs and chest—were severely playful. Later, however, the meshiness became messy and too baroquely involved: The agenda seemed to drift away from servicing the female form Koma says he is compelled to design for, and instead read like clauses in an ongoing narrative of decorative variation. But gothic-touched ’60s is at least a new, if niche, category to explore, and Koma’s sincerity seems undeniable. ​