Expert Eye: Cybele

Cybele's collection was clasically feminine but somewhat underwhelming. Photo / Getty Images

Designer Cybele Wiren has cornered a market in fluid silk pieces cunningly cut to drape beautifully.

In just six years she has gone from participating in the group New Generation shows at Fashion Week to being first up on the runway for the last two years.

Her much anticipated show started 45 minutes late and perhaps the waiting took its toll for the collection seemed less cohesive than her last few.

Clearly she is trying to evolve, but in adding other elements into the mix her signature style was diluted.

The lovely silk prints remained, this year the recurring motif was a lily, seens also in cast glass jewellery made especially for the show by artist Layla Walter.

Mixed in was khaki knitwear, and a surfeit of less saleable diaphonous pieces, including capes.

The models looked a little awkward in body-conscious Alaia-esque without-the-elastine body suits, but perhaps this was due to their heels.

More successful in scultpted shapes were the Dupion silk dresses with their pleats and panels echoing the moth wings that backlit the runway.

Victorian botanical imagery was the inspiration behind the Virtue collection and this clearly showed in wing panel details and exaggerated ruffles.

Short silk skirts and dresses fanned out from the body turning the models into Gothic black moths. Nude and peach also figured.

A dove grey tunic-style dress was fluid and assured with fluted pleat sleeves. Other dresses combined silk satin, topped with georgette apron cut-skirts and bat-wing sleeves.

The progression of design ideas from previous seasons was clear in the panelling and draping, which plays to the designer's strengths.

Adding in a tailored little black jacket with exaggerated shoulder panels may be a sign of things to come in Wiren trying to evolve a more extensive collection.

To my mind (and perhaps as a busy young mum) she may be best to build on her strengths for a few more seasons to come.

Her following is strong and deserved.

I for one love wearing her wonderfully feminine, but not at all girly dresses.

Despite feeling a little underwhelmed this year, there's no doubting Wiren's original talent will win out, it's just today's collection was not the knockout we've come to expect.