Gareth Pugh‘s avant-garde and conceptual collections have been making waves in the fashion industry and causing quite a stir every season of showing. Since his debut solo premiere in 2006, the British designer and a Central Saint Martins graduate has been designing for several celebrities like Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue. Known for his fashion-as-performance-art penchant that stretches back through Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, and Vivienne Westwood to the eighties club culture of Leigh Bowery, Pugh has shown us his unique point of view with the perfect inclusion of alternative materials such as perspex, synthetic hair, parachute silk etc in his collections.
But in the recent years, Pugh admitted that he need to sell his collection in order to survive and we have started to see a shift to a more commercial collection but still having his avant-garde touch present. In his S/S 2015 show, which I believe is one of his strongest showings throughout his career, had me swinging from left to right and back again, just at awe with the showmanship of the collection. Down right to the details, I could not take my eyes off this collection.
“I wanted it of the earth, rather than landed from a spaceship,”
– Pugh said of the collection.
He acknowledges the fact that his clothes often remind people of something extraterrestrial. Thus he draws on raw textures of chiffon thistles and gauzy silk, and for inspiration, he reimagines a time when masquerades and ritualistic sacrifice were still a thing. One of his designs calls up the image of a court jester, reincarnated as something slicker and more sinister. Some of them are crowned with papier-mâché skulls which reminded me of Santa Fe, the back world charm. Most importantly, the so called ‘frayed luxury’ Pugh calls is a series of burlap fabric draped onto the body. A little scarecrow-ish, but I really do admire the perspective of his on such inexpensive material. Several other pieces that caught my attention was the rope detailing and Mother of Pearl buttons used as embellishments.
All in all, the collection featured many modern twists but at the same time, having a rather occultism sinister charm that had me thrown from the left to right and back again, wanting for more.
More images of the collection here.
Image Source: style.com