Pugh you
Image Credit: style.com
Every industry needs its Gareth Pughs to mainline some unadulterated creativity into its veins. To challenge our expectations of clothes, to assault our assumptions of what’s wearable. As a sort of protest against that homogenised skinny jeaned, ballerina pump-wearing ‘everygirl’ that trots down the high street and thinks Lauren Conrad from The Hills is a style icon. Fashion insiders love a rebel, and Pugh is the ultimate – you couldn’t even buy the clothes before Spring 2007 – they existed as pieces of performance art for the catwalk alone. Fashion devoid of commerce or consumption….isn’t there something wonderfully anti-Marc Jacobs about that?
That Pugh worked in a theatrical costume department before his training will come as no surprise. Neither will the squat in Peckham which Pugh shared with other creatives, part gallery part club. But that he’d one day ”…like to buy a house and be the Calvin Klein of catsuits” might. Enter Rick Owens and his business partner wife who have secured him manufacture. Now there is a retail collection, Topshop as a fashion week sponsor, installations, and a good deal of editorial support.
Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to have their head bent occasionally, to think Bladerunner, the Marquis De Sade, Dune, cyberpunks and androids, rave culture, fetish, acid house, robots, Predator, gay 80s subculture and Star Wars rather than clothes. But ultimately women want to wear the damn things, not ruminate on them. They want a decent winter coat for under a grand. Clothes have to fit our lives and our bodies, and as yet this is anarchic fashion with a finger up at the uninitiated.
