Divine! is murmured rather rarely by the audience at menswear shows. Less still by means of identification. But there were snatches of Polyester on the soundtrack to James Long's new show, and pink flamingos beaded onto a pullover, and a general sense of gleeful bad taste, so when those familiar golden arches eyebrows appeared on a sweater, above a smear of knitted eye shadow and rouge, you knew instantly whose portrait that was. That there was Divine.
John Waters didn't seem like the muse you'd imagine for James Long, whose collections often have a skittish, scratched-out intensity. But Long was in high spirits backstage as he celebrated his first show on his own, unfunded by any of London's young-designer initiatives. And even with his mud-puddle-and-phlegm color scheme, the slippery slickness of his rubberized coats and padded jackets, and his insistence on elasticating every pant leg in sight (in fairness, a malady that's gone around London this season like a cold), it was hard to fault him his pluck. Though it was hard to think who might be as enthusiastic about dressing the bad boy of Baltimore part as he. But then, pared down to pieces, the collection maintained its logic while deflating its shtick, and when Long appeared for his bow in one of those rubber-coated plaid macs, it barely seemed satirical at all. Get your Divine sweater while you can.