We love Antipodium looooong time. The business of sitting through the Anglo-Australian label’s AW12 show isn’t so much a question of writing a report as compiling a shopping list. And this isn’t just the case with slovenly Time Out reporters- while glossy mag writers may editorially coo over the flamboyance of a Paris show, Antipodium is the wearable, witty and just about affordable label that most of them actually buy. 

As if to prove their rapidly growing fanbase, the collection (charmingly entitled Vermin) was shown twice running in a packed out hall thrice the size of their usual venue. Before the show, designer Geoffrey J Finch had confided to us a little anxiety about putting the gentle fashion buyer off with a rodenty name, but wanted something that summed up the collection’s preoccupation with the grotty underside of East London- with dresses named after Clapton streets eg The Powerscroft dress (we can see our house from there!). There was nothing unappealing about the clothes, however, with cute furry tippet neckwarmers, silky nipped in shirt dresses, and slim cigarette pants. Best of all was the recurrent Eastenders map print, abstracted and then cut into silky blouses and frocks- it looks as though Antipodium, like Time Out, is taking London as its muse.