October 16, 2015 |
“Christopher Nemeth is the most important designer to come out of London, alongside Vivienne Westwood,” reckons Kim Jones. That’s why he used his AW15 Louis Vuitton collection to pay homage to Nemeth. And we mean proper homage – as in, working with the late great’s estate, as opposed to just appropriating his imagery and slapping it on some product.
Jones makes no bones about his love of London’s vibrant 1980s club culture – he collects clobber by people such as Rachel Auburn and Leigh Bowery, cultish designers who produced one-off pieces that never saw the light of day, because they were only worn out all night. And if he doesn’t fuse direct references to them with the high-luxe universe of Vuitton, he often draws on their sense of invention and irreverence. It’s very much in the label’s vein to ask, say, the Chapmans to scribble evil hobgoblins over chintz, or gouge out an eyeball as a googly key ring.
This time round, Jones chose to work not only with Nemeth’s designs, but also with those of his contemporaries. Judith Blame, another stylish addition to the collective and store dubbed The House of Beauty and Culture that Nemeth helped establish in the 1980s, wove jewellry out of debris – such as painstakingly realised monogram buttons and loops of cord. The Frick and Frack-designed interior of the collective’ boutique, inspired Vuitton’s show space. And Nemeth’s signature wriggling rope wormed its way throughout, even on to the sacred Vuitton Damier check. It was, safe to say, an organic and all-emcompassing collaboration.
Text by Alexander Fury, taken from Issue 42 of 10 Men, on newsstands now.
Photograph by Jason Lloyd-Evans
