London Sartorial by Rizzoli International Publications

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ALRIGHT P H OTO G R A P H Y R E B E C C A T H O M A S STYLING

V I C TO R I A H I G G S

M O D E L S . N I C K R U M P AT S E L E C T M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T. M AT T D O R A N AT P R M . J A C K B U R K E AT D 1 M O D E L S

BRIT POP P H OTO G R A P H Y S C OT T T R I N D L E

STYLING

L U K E D AY

LIKE A ROLLING STONE P H OTO G R A P H Y STYLING

SEAN THOMAS JO LEVIN

P H OTO G R A P H Y R E B E C C A T H O M A S S T Y L I N G V I C TO R I A H I G G S

G R O O M E R . T E I J I U T S U M I . M O D E L . N I C K R U M P AT S E L E C T M O D E L M A N A G E M E N T

Stylist’s assistants Dominik Pollin. Production Katy Offley Productions

LONDON COOL

LONDON CALLING Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London...

P H O T O G R A P H Y J O N AT H A N D A N I E L P R I C E

AW.16

P RO F I L E

CRAIG GREEN

AW.16

FOUNDER

Craig’s designs were first shown on-schedule through Topman and Fashion East’s MAN show for London Collections Men, while subsequent shows through the initiative have continued to explore a unique marriage between boundary-pushing showmanship and wearability. With the support of NEWGEN Man, Green achieved widespread acclaim with his first solo show, winning a British Fashion Award for Emerging Menswear Designer in 2014. The Independent’s Alex Fury was an early adopter: “[His clothes] are intelligently designed, beautifully executed and created with a minimum of fuss, often utilising humble fabrics like drill and poplin to create maximum impact; an economy that feels invigorating. His voice lends something different to the debate. His work stands out – and in the crowded landscape of modern fashion, that’s all-important.” 00 © 2016 Rizzoli International Publications. All Rights Reserved.

P RO F I L E

PAUL SMITH S I R PA U L S M I T H . F O U N D E R

AW.16

AW.15

Paul Smith is the godfather of British menswear, the man who, in the Eighties, brought a completely new sensibility to men’s retailing by fusing the traditional and the quirky; he coined this new idea “classic with a twist”, and never looked back. It was once said of David Bowie that he was Google before there was Google, and in a way you could say the same thing about Paul Smith. Walk into his Covent Garden office and you’ll find yourself entering an extraordinary Aladdin’ Cave of the arcane, the eccentric and the ridiculously modish. This is where Paul comes to do his thinking, though how he can keep his mind on the matter in hand is mystifying because Smith’s inner sanctum is a hodge-podge of cultural tidbits, a cornucopia of the coo and the absurd. “The office is the equivalent of my brain,” he says. There are piles of everything from clockwork robots and water pistols to old copies of Vogue, Nova and Town; tatty cardboard boxes filled with antique cameras and painted shirts, Victorian birthday cards and old maps of Paris; dustbin bags full of toy rabbits, plastic watches, rubber fish, and enamel lapel pins from British holiday resorts which have long since faded from memory. There will usually also be several large white boxes full of prototypes of new Apple products sent by his friend Jonathan Ive (Paul is often the first person in the country to see the latest iteration of the company’s phones, iPads and watches). In the best possible sense Paul has always been a sponge, and his attitude towards his work exemplifies this. He is still a bastion of Great British Design (cap G, cap B, cap D), yet has become one of our greatest design ambassadors. And, seemingly, a man who never stops. SS.16

‘We endeavor to sit firmly in the middle of the brands that fear creating hing’ Xxxxxxxxxxx

P RO F I L E

THOM SWEENEY T O M W H I D D E T T & L U K E S W E E N E Y. F O U N D E R S

AW.16

When designers try and reinvent the retail experience, they usually do so by conjuring up gran visions fashioned from steel, glass and acres of impossibly brutalist reinforced white Perspex. In fact there is still a sense that if you want to produce a modern shopping environment then it has to look like the box that your latest Apple product came in. A big one, mind, but a white box all the same. London, however, is predictably different in this respect, and as it is full of genuinely traditional men’s outfitters, there is now a new generation of designers who have no qualms about making their shops look as though they were first opened in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth centuries. Take the Thom Sweeney store in Weighhouse Street in Mayfair. This little piece of London’s most obviously upmarket shopping district – nicknamed North Mayfair - is “coming up”, as estate agents still like to say. Here you have Jeremy King and Chris Corbin’s Beaumont Hotel, you have the shops in Duke Street, and you have a host of new little restaurants that are forcing people to stroll north of Grosvenor Square. And of course you have Thom Sweeney’s beautiful townhouse, a bespoke tailors that feels as though it has been transported there direct from Victorian London via Miami circa 1930, Los Angeles circa 1940, and possibly New York circa 1965. As christened by GQ, it is an immersive man-temple, a man-lair of note. It is chic, as are the men who own it. Luke Sweeney and Thom Whiddett used to work for master tailor Timothy Everest, and as well as creating beautiful shopping environments, they also produce beautiful bespoke suits – significantly sharply-cut threepieces complete with horseshoe waistcoats, grey flannel two-pieces, hopsack blazers and brushed-cotton chinos. You could call these clothes new duds with an old-fashioned sensibility, or old duds with a new-found sensibility. Either way, they work. AW.16