Seasoned from the success of her SS08 diffusion line at Topman, Carolyn Massey makes a return to Lens with a distinctive aesthetic that continues to venerate, but in a bolder fashion, the romanticism and gothic charm that filters through 18th and 19th century English fashion.

Massey injects an old English familiarity of neutral hues—black, white, grey—with the occasional bright colour to harken us back to a sartorial code that is part moody, part romantic, but part avant-garde.

Winged-collar and bib front shirts pop up throughout the collection as does an all-too unconventional Sherlock Holmes-esque cape. Despite Massey’s reverence for age-old fashion, a twinge of modernity is thrown into the mix by virtue of her silhouettes. One gets a timeless feel to the collection—the cape’s simplified lines and capacious qualities makes it an enviable winter coat—that ultimately renders a contemporary portrait to these antique items.

Come September, be on the lookout for Carolyn Massey’s AW08 collection in the Lens area at Topman Oxford Circus, Laforet Harajuku (in the Shibuya area of Tokyo, Japan) and online as well at the Topman debut in New York.