After two years away from the catwalk, Craig Green invited a small audience of 120 into his studio to unveil his SS25 collection. Overlooking the O2 Arena and East London’s docklands – with the likes of Steve McQueen, Michele Lamy and the city’s finest design talent in the audience – the intimate affair was fitting. The collection was one of Green’s most personal yet. He had been thinking about relationships between sons and fathers, and the expectations each has for one another. “You have ideas of what your father will be and your father has ideas of what you will be, that’s kind of just part of life,” said the designer backstage, often speaking of memories of his own late father.
Over the last 10 years, Green’s collections have tackled the complex notions of modern masculinity via protective gear, workwear and experimental wearable sculptures. Here he dissected leather protective vests, cutting and reworking patches into swollen biker jackets made alongside ECCO.Kollektive that looked like the anatomical making of the human form. There were two collaborations threaded throughout: clever, double-collard polo shirts with Fred Perry and Eastpak backpacks equipped with tentacle-like straps that danced as the models walked through the space.
A series of shirts featured childlike depictions of diggers and fire engines. “They’re like traditional codes of masculinity,” said Green. “It’s strange how in children’s bedrooms they have pictures of tractors, fire engines and cement mixers from the day you’re born.” The shirts came cut in a handkerchief-style finishes. “My dad was never someone that had a handkerchief, neither was my granddad, but I like the idea of something so simple, like a square of fabric, having so much meaning.” He likened such to patchworks families often make of the clothes that once belonged to relatives that have passed.
The collection was bookended by slew of netted tabards in vivid hues that were made from T-shirt jersey and drew inspiration from the old tea towels that populated Green’s home growing up. They not only spotlighted the technical brilliance of the Green’s designs but showed the sheer emotional pull of Green’s clothes. It was nothing short of spectacular.
Photography by Amy Gwatkin.
