EMILIA WICKSTEAD AUTUMN/WINTER 2015-16 READY-TO-WEAR LONDON FASHION WEEK

Wes Anderson must surely be fashion’s favorite cinematic prism. Today it was Emilia Wickstead’s turn to cite Anderson’s dreamily diffractive filter as her collection’s muse, although she at first called him Wes Gordon. “I’m pregnant, by the way,” she said after correcting herself. “That’s my excuse!”

You could see why Wickstead felt the yen for a spot of sideways reassessment. Her gowns—they are very much gowns—and separates have a timeless swoonsome-ness to them that Lauren Bacall would have relished. Thanks to these, Wickstead has stamped herself a large footprint from a small base, particularly on the red carpet. Today the main event section of faded but peppy texturized gowns and separates catered to that audience: The flash rather drowned the richness of these pieces, and they needed viewing from all angles, but they were typically conservatively lovely to behold. Many had little hip-sourced pleated capelets that fell backwards—sort of negative peplums. Other tricksy details included bunches of fold and gathering puckered at the shoulder, elbow, or small of the back. Wickstead went big on patch pockets; she said she had been looking at service uniforms.

That trusty Anderson filter kicked in at look 23, in a rusty tartan of silk shot through with reflective synthetics that suddenly ramped up the acid factor. And then, could it be, black PVC? Wickstead confessed that even her workroom staff was shocked when she showed up with a bolt of it. Whether her core constituency wants a frisson of the incongruous is debatable. And Wickstead straightened her tilt at kinkiness by maintaining that a floor-length coat in the material would make a practical raincoat—pshaw. This was her Margot’s fur moment, but it may not have been necessary: The Wickstead woman is serene.