Christopher Raeburn is good at stuff. Stuff we don’t quite understand. Techy stuff. Fabrics. Recycled ones, or cotton that cools you down. 3D silicone printing. That kind of thing. And this was an exercise in all of that, the clothes tagged with hanging ribbons that read “re-made” and “recycled.” Save the planet etc. etc. But that wasn’t actually the starting point. According to the press release the inspiration was actually “The Long Walk” by Slavonic Rawicz. Not a metaphorical one. 4000 miles of it – from the Gobi Desert to the Himalayas. And what do you need for a walk? Presumably a nice comfy pair of footwear. So there was comfy footwear aplenty here – a collaboration with Brit brand Palladium, which, from what we’ve read were very new fangled indeed.
Recycled leather, organic cotton, a three-way layering system meaning they could be worn, handily, as either boots or sandals. And the clothes themselves were functionally minded too – pre-flown kites were refigured into macs and anoraks, alongside parkas made from cooling cotton that also protects you from the sun. Proper technical stuff. Christopher’s clothes are always functional aren’t they? Clothing for the practical sort. Possibly outdoorsy? Which, on paper, isn’t us. We haven’t undertaken physical activity since 1992. We have people to do that for us. That said, there’s no rules about wearing this stuff. Happy to slot a couple of bits into our wardrobe – the touches of tulle, refigured here as a sportswear fabric, looked good. So too the flashes of orange. Quite into the sheer bucket hats too. Because there’s no real rules for this stuff. Walk 4000 miles or lay prostate on a sofa being fed vodka through a drip. Christopher won’t mind.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
