JEAN-PIERRE BRAGANZA AUTUMN/WINTER 2015-16 READY-TO-WEAR LONDON

Note to J-P: The problem with giving us such a vim-filled and thematically focused press release—including the excellent line “hail the awesome symmetry and terrifying beauty of fighter jets”—plus a pre-model preamble that featured air-raid sirens and the shifting glare of spotlights, is that it rather primes the audience to expect explosively aeronautical clothes. But these were not that.

So let’s eject the mouth and focus on the trousers. Braganza likes a fold, has an eye for drape, and pulled off some pleasant origami detailing on a series of maroon-ish dresses that sometimes veered via dégradé to gray and were occasionally ill-served by matching leather opera gloves. You can’t see in the gallery, but many of them had old-school Victoria Beckham-y top-to-hem GOLD zippers down the spine. An aubergine Aran knit midi dress worn with a high-waist biker and black leather thigh-highs featured a wholesomely provocative brace of thigh slashes. There was a bit of Top Gun-ery in a print used on angle-sleeved loose tops and pants, a flyby of aviators, and more abstractly, in the gleaming hardware on some undelightful chokers. Braganza’s true flight path seems more considerately, sophisticatedly conservative than the tum-turrah his rhetoric suggests. He should embrace it. He’s a grown-up disguised as a maverick.