WHY ARE LOVERBOY DESIGNS DESCRIBED AS AN ORGANISED CHAOS?

How I went from Jil Sander to LOVERBOY I’ll never know! From minimalist and simple, to crazy and colour! But I feel this highly echoes me as a person and how my creativity shifts from one direction to another.

Charles Jeffrey’s work comprises of an unruly approach to styling through the clashing of patterns including stripes, tartans, and prints, along with fringed finishings, smudged makeup and a DIY approach to fashion. Nevertheless, through features like structured and sartorial silhouettes, it brings the ‘organised’ amongst the chaos! Jeffrey’s nightlifeinfluenced thirst for experimentation and the belief in the validity of mistakes, result in a colourful tension (LondonFashionWeek, n.d). Personally, I don’t see Charles Jeffrey’s designs as ‘perfect’, compared to the likes of Jil Sander anyhow, where they are sleek and clean lined.

I think this is where I have found a reverberation in his brand. I don’t strive to be perfect, both as a creative and individually, and I feel I discovered a part in his community which values the un-neat and naïve parts of my persona. The parts we all attempt to hide away from the rest of the world. I adore how his narratives relate to people on so many levels, whether that be in gender/sexuality or emotionally like GLOOM, for example, which exhibited it’s okay to not be okay.

I feel I resonate with the term ‘organised chaos’ currently, as my work embodies a dysfunctional artistic approach, which has a firm storytelling but is portrayed outrageously and at times, unkept. There is beauty amongst chaos, and my concentration for this module has been to find beauty in the unconventional just as Jeffrey, and designers like Kawakubo and Westwood did too.

WHY DOES CHARLES JEFFREY UTILISE TARTAN AND HOW IS IT SYMBOLIC OF HIS BRAND IDENTITY AND VALUES?

Charles Jeffrey is most affiliated with his Scottish heritage and rightly so! The Glaswegian designer values his native background and informs it within many of his collections. Throughout my findings, I have discerned Jeffrey collaborating or taking influence from a range of Scottish talents, from art (John Byrne for example) to music, and I feel this is massively empowering.

Within his designs, tartan is avidly prominent. Investigating into the uniform, its symbolism, and its importance for the Scots, I learned that it was worn by Scottish clans as a form of expression. There are specific tartans in a range of colourways, all of which have individual representations relaying as far back as to the 16th century. Tartan is one of the world’s leading national marks of identification, spanning from its original allegiance with clans and its semiotics to communicate political viewpoints, as well as familial, regional, and national singularities (Miller, 2021). The notion of tartan bringing together an allegiance, is reciprocal of Charles Jeffrey employing it to embed a community. I think he has used the material ingeniously to communicate a sense of belonging, and I appreciate this a lot.

Coming from a part-Scottish heritage myself, I treasure having such originality and I admire observing members of my family wear a kilt as a form of uniform, of pride and continual legacy. Jeffrey has often collaborated with Scottish tartan mill, DC Dalgliesh to continue the role of tartan in the fashion industry’s future by re-imagining how it can be worn, using both traditional designs and his own exclusive patterning (Lowe, 2018).

I feel it is important to recognise how Jeffrey is continuously seeking potential in his roots but updating them for a contemporary consumer.