Style File: Fashion plays with tricks of the light

Iridescent, holographic and opalescent - the hottest finishes this season use tricks of the light, writes Stephanie Hirschmiller

The light-refracting dress worn by Katy Perry to launch her Prism album last month didn’t just reflect the record’s title. It also tapped into fashion’s current obsession with optics.

The trend had its origins last year in Christopher Kane’s rainbow-hued Prism it-dress, but now it’s bigger and brighter, with clothes, accessories and make-up, too, all tripping the light fantastic.

While colour is generally the last thing you’d expect to find in an Alexander Wang show, this season, the designer slotted polarised glass lenses into grey, black and navy mohair knits for a futuristic shimmer, or spun his wool with opalescent sequins to an eye-bending moiré effect.

The prints at Hugo Boss owed much to the watery traces bleeding from a digitised kaleidoscope, while Anya Hindmarch’s games-themed collection of bags featured kaleidoscopic clutches complete with dizziness-inducing op-art spirals. As for Sophia Webster’s LFW presentation, she showed holographic heels and gladiator boots amid an enchanted forest tableau. Her models’ hair was plaited with rainbow twists like the horns on a bevy of unicorns – and just like the spectral waves of light bouncing off a prism.

Even make-up has an iridescent quality to it. At Mary Katrantzou, MAC’s Val Garland created what she called the “cellophane eye”, slicking lids with the brand’s yet-to-be released pro gloss in mother of pearl – perfectly capturing the mood of the designer’s ghostly landscapes.

And it’s not just a flash in the pan, either. This is one fashion comet set to trail its wake right through to the spring.

Roksanda Ilincic’s sculptural resort 14 dresses came cinched with iridescent belts reflecting the contrast-colour interiors of exaggerated sleeves.

They were further accessorised with holographic giant clutch bags and completed with Nicholas Kirkwood’ s perspex rainbow heels. Beam us up, planet fashion.