Once you have decided on a theme for the season,
what is your approach to deepening your interpretation of the subject matter,
and how do you incorporate this into your design?
I think for me, it’s like, you know, I’m always thinking about the design of the garments, but also all the different layers: so how and what the imagery is going to look like for the look book. I’ve collaborated with some really great photographers— Piczo and Bolade Banjo, Samuel Bradley— who have captured the essence and we reference a lot of like vintage books and vintage photos of musicians, and album covers, and lots of musical references to create the right feeling— something that feels timeless. The inspiration for every collection, sometimes we look at, you know, lots of different books which I have been collecting here in the studio, and I reference the vintage garments from different eras in my archive, whether it’s American workwear or British military, as well as playing music and being inspired by the sound, the visuals and the artwork on some of the album covers. So all of that goes into my sort of process of design to create the right feeling and vision for each collection.
In your show and collection videos, you have
featured many artists and musicians, haven’t
you?
So the use of musicians and artists has always been
an important part.
Red
Clay
was sort of our first show with live music, which
I’d like Yussef Dayes and Shabaka Hutchings, Mansur
Brown, Alfa Mist, James Messiah to perform. They’re
all amazing musicians based here in London, and it’s
really great to collaborate with them and celebrate their talents, and to
crossover between fashion and music, but doing it in an authentic way. It’s just really nice to go on a journey with other creatives who also
get inspired by what I do, and I am inspired by what they do. So it’s a really great exchange, to have live music and performances as
something which I work on all the collections to give the sonic wall a kind of
back backdrop to the visual — which is obviously the garments and how they’re always interconnected within my creative world.