Just as Topshop fanatics have started to come to terms with Louise Gray’s quirky collaboration with the high-street emporium, news is announced that Topshop will also be joining forces with London-based designer, JW Anderson. This is big. Not only is the 55-piece collection physically just big for a high-street/designer collaboration, but it is also powerful and explosive.

JW Anderson stated that the collection was created with his ‘sister in my mind’, to ensure it was accessible to the average Topshop consumer. It is safe to say that, often, the consumer gets forgotten in the midst of the designer/high-street identity crisis, with rails of leftover ‘sale’ garments embarrassingly positioned in the corner of high-street shops. Not this collection. Accessibility is what this is about.

Despite the styling in the moody, black and white preview photographs, the collection is surprisingly playful. Included are clothes, shoes, accessories and, to cement the playful yet cool vibe, JW lollies, badges and pencils. Garments range from tailored separates to baseball jackets and animal-printed skirts with matching tops. The overriding essence is androgyny yet femininity. Its simplicity screams fashion in its understated manner with gender-neutrality at its core.  Navy loafers, oversized shirts and trench coats. Think Alexa Chung.

He describes the collection as ‘a bridge between craft and modernity’, but surely it is the bridge between high street and designer that will make this collection a potential success.  Anderson alludes to the interdependent relationship of the designer market and high street; but from a consumer’s point of view, this appears to be the first designer collaboration that truly reflects and builds on this relationship.

The JW Anderson for Topshop collection will be in stores on the 14th September to coincide with the beginning of London Fashion Week. A following line will be released in early 2013.