A tough year in fashion — but hard-working designers are coming up tops
Jake Burt and Stefan Cook, designers, Stefan Cook
The fashion industry is in crisis — that’s no secret. Since the onset of the novel coronavirus, brands have been faced with unsold stock, delayed payments, early discounting, cancelled orders, and closed production facilities and distribution centres. Consumers are taking their money elsewhere — health, fitness, and home improvement are thriving.
At the epicentre of this problem is emerging designers, the bright young talents only a few years into business are impacted the most. They are rich in ideas and spirit and low on resources. Now, a generation of them is endangered by the pandemic.
Enter MATCHESFASHION: the luxury retailer based in London. This September welcomed the Innovators Programme, an initiative designed to formalise support for emerging designers online. Buying director, Natalie Kingham, said: “I am delighted that we have formalised our support for emerging talent, developing The Innovators into a programme that actually helps future-proof their businesses in what has been a tough year for the creative industry.”
The programme is supporting menswear designers that you might not yet be familiar with but ones to consider should you wish to elevate your wardrobe, or for inspiration. They are ART SCHOOL, Ahluwalia, Stefan Cooke, Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Bianca Saunders, and Wales Bonner.
Here are a few new names to note:
Who: Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt
What to expect: Familiar tropes such as denim and knitwear reinvented with an avant-garde facet. Mundane Fair Isle knits and blue denim are brought to life through optical illusions and decadent embroideries.
Over the past three years, Stefan Cooke has developed organically, slowly picking up stores that admire their quirky trompe l’œil prints and masculine touch. With the MATCHESFASHION opportunity, comes something that most designers cannot access right now: security.
“It’s just the idea of being able to really have something pioneering you but also securing things for you, which is really amazing — it’s exciting,” said Cooke.
Burt added: "With security as well it means you can take more risks in the future because you know what’s going on financially and stuff, which is brilliant.”
The end result: a smart, lasting product for you to slyly distinguish yourself from everyone else.
Who: Grace Wales Bonner
What to expect: Smart clothes that do the 'talking' for you: Wales Bonner investigates the notion of black male identity, skewering post-colonial theory, music and art. They might sound complex but the clothes present as reserved and dignified with flecks of 1970s tailoring.
Grace Wales Bonner has been working with MATCHESFASHION for five years now. Her career picked up from her graduate collection at London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins college. Her theoretical inspirations and elaborate showcases are translated into clothing that values craft on an equal plane with storytelling.
Her latest collection looked to reggae in the 1970s, channeling the magnetism of music into desirable clothes, classic wool trousers, and jackets with the red, gold, and green of the Rastafarian flag. Few can compare to Wales Bonner’s tireless devotion to stylish, uncomplicated clothing that stratifies historical references.
“It’s always really wonderful working closely with the team so I’m really excited to work more closely and to share the story behind what I’m working on,” said Wales Bonner.
Who: Charles Jeffrey
What to expect: Where office-wear meets club culture and doyens of Brick Lane, LOVERBOY throws caution — and gender — to the wind with a contemporary spin on tailoring with graphic prints and military influences.
Over the years, Scotsman Charles Jeffrey’s attitudes towards gender and his approach to fashion as a playground for costume and creativity have been distilled into commercially viable pieces.
Club culture and interest in post-apocalyptic ceremonies are rendered simply in sumptuous, lurid knits, tartan suits and kilts, and magical outerwear suitable for our disaster-stricken world.
(While LOVERBOY retails on the women’s section of the website, the brand is intent about its gender-neutral appeal, a testament to changing attitudes towards gender conventions and contemporary masculinity.)
Who: Priya Ahluwalia
What to expect: Her work explores youth culture, her Nigerian, Indian, Jamaican heritage, and the immigrant experience in Britain — a melting pot of inspirations that makes for clothing that is largely printed with delightful patterns, block patterns, and primarily based on sportswear silhouettes.
Priya Ahluwalia distinctly remembers peering through the windows at the MATCHESFASHION store in Wimbledon as a child. Now, the 27-year-old London-based designer is stocked on the retailer’s website. The pandemic halted production for Ahluwalia but nonetheless she powered through, working from home and occasionally visiting her studio in East London. One can find upcycled denim and loose shirts that draw on the British garage scene in the 1990s. She said the opportunity with MATCHESFASHION will help her label succeed “beyond what is necessary” — an honourable philosophy that asserts she places quality squarely over quantity.
The above designers are now available to buy on matchesfashion.com
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