October 27, 2025 |
Gary Card, 43, is a big kid. Aside from the fact that he looks not a day older than 21, the eternally twinky artist and set designer also lives and works within his very own toytown – a poky studio in Hackney filled to the brim with everything from gargoyle sculptures and cartoon paintings to a recent overhead installation from Dover Street Market’s sample sale.
Often, his commissions for clients end up in a skip, which is both a shame and a necessity. There simply isn’t space for two decades’ worth of masking tape, plywood, chewing gum, hair gel and whatever else the Poole-born, Bournemouth-raised polymath has melded together for a brand.
Gary Card in his studio; photography by TARAN WILKHU
It’s a bright Monday lunchtime in May when I meet Card at his studio. He’s wearing baggy green corduroys, an intarsia cardigan by Japanese label Kapital, a dark-mauve striped T-shirt by Brain Dead and a pair of Asics. The tee is crucial: Card is obsessed with the colour purple, a fact that many have falsely attributed to his love for Prince. (The truth: as a child, Card was so fascinated by his grandmother’s purple carpet that his parents installed one in his bedroom.) With floppy, platinum-blond hair, thick-rimmed glasses and a tattoo of his self-created mascot character, Smudge, on his forearm, the designer looks akin to a young David Hockney. In fact, for AnOther Man’s SS08 issue, he was shot as the Bradford-born painter.
figurative sculpture from Card’s ‘Homunculus’ series, 2022
As Card speaks, he gesticulates generously, piecing together a journey that has made him something of an “elder statesman” – his words, not mine – in fashion. It’s an industry joke that his last name is a titular explanation of his day job. Indeed, the scenes, backdrops and creations he puts together for labels are often made almost entirely of cardboard. Despite a résumé of gigs spanning Dior, Louis Vuitton, early JW Anderson, Nike and Adidas, not to mention a growing art-world presence, Card comes across as refreshingly easy-going and has built his career without the benefits of nepotism. A West Country tinge in his voice is a tell of his humble seaside beginnings.
from left: ‘Cab Trap’, 2022 and set design for Louis Vuitton men’s SS21 campaign, ‘Message in a Bottle’, photographed by Tim Walker, styled by Ib Kamara
As a gay geek living far from the capital, he hated school, seeking solace in television and comics. Then, his dream was to make toys. Sitting opposite me in a bright orange, fold-out chair, he says, “I’ve always joked that becoming a set designer was like making massive toys. I made my dream come true in that respect.” Having spent plenty of time on building sites as a kid with his late father – a builder by trade – Card has tactile instincts that go way back. His mother, who works as a cleaner, still lives in Bournemouth, while Card, after years in East London, now resides south of the river.
figurative sculpture from Card’s ‘Homunculus’ series, 2022
In 1999, he left his hometown to study set design for performance at Central Saint Martins, but it wasn’t because he was interested in theatre or production design. Rather, two years earlier he had come across the cover for Björk’s Homogenic album, shot by Nick Knight and costumed by Alexander McQueen, and knew he had to enrol wherever the latter had studied. Card describes himself as a quiet student, fascinated with “making stuff”.
Once art school was over in 2002, he thought his set-designing days were done. Not yet ready to commit to adult life, he spent a few years working in CSM’s student union, first as a receptionist, then a counsellor. Eventually, he ended up at a company called Pentland Brands as an in-house creative, covering graphic design, tech packs and illustration for labels like Speedo, Kickers and Ellesse. “There are actually swimming costumes out there I designed,” he says, laughing. “Ridiculous!”
an artwork commissioned by Luis Venegas for his publication ‘The Printed Dog’, designed and shot by Gary Card
Card felt ignored at work, but had – as a hobby – been working on fantastical fashion editorials with his good friend and flatmate, the photographer and director Jacob Sutton. The pair would pitch these to magazines; they were usually rejected. One lunchtime, Card called Sutton, lamenting his job. “I said, ‘I just wish there was a job that meant I could make my shit all day,’” he remembers. It was then that Sutton told him what should have been obvious: “There is.” Card studied up and began reaching out with renewed tenacity, using tools like MySpace to contact commissioning editors and gradually landing gigs with stylists like Alister Mackie and Nicola Formichetti.
from left: ‘Hysterical’ at Phillips auction house; an installation view of Card’s ‘People Mountain People Sea’ exhibition, 2024
Around then, he was also enjoying life as a club kid on the nu-rave scene, flitting between venues like Nag Nag Nag, Wig Out, Antisocial, All You Can Eat and, later, the infamous Boombox. “I’d stay up until, like, five o’clock in the morning making stuff and then go straight to work [at Pentland] with one or two hours sleep,” he says. Fortune had it that his moonlighting would soon become full-time work. Formichetti, having previously co-founded cult Soho store The Pineal Eye, was taken on by Lady Gaga as her stylist, and Card was brought along for the ride. His first creation for the star was a gun-metal, tessellated keytar for 2009’s The Fame Ball tour. Card had spray-painted, sellotaped and glued the design, only to find out later that it was a one-of-a-kind prototype AX-Synth supplied by instrument company Roland. “They were furious,” he says, giggling.
interior design for LN-CC concept store
Back then, whatever Formichetti wanted, Card would make, often winging it. In time, Formichetti introduced him to Dover Street Market, marking the start of some of Card’s most beloved fashion work. Then, in 2008, a watershed moment came when he was commissioned for the Comme des Garçons SHIRT AW09 campaign. “They were the guys that saw me beyond just being a set designer,” he says, referring to Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe. The result was a topsy-turvy world of blocks inspired by children’s books – shot by Sutton and built with support from Card’s father.
‘Melissa Medusa’, a large sculptural piece at Melissa Galeria, Frieze London, 2018
Some years later, Card received a call from creative director Ronnie Cooke Newhouse. Keeping the chat short and sweet, she suggested he keep his phone close by. A few hours passed before Joffe rang to ask him to come up with some headpieces for Comme des Garçons’ SS12 show. He also said Kawakubo didn’t want to see any of the work in progress. In lieu of a brief, Card was given two words, ‘white’ and ‘rubber’, and then summoned to Paris. The set designer carried about 15 inflatable headpieces on the Eurostar in laundry bags, before being led to a darkened room where he found two other makers next to tables displaying their wares. He arranged the headpieces, Kawakubo examined them and, without looking at him, selected three to use in the show. “At the end of the show, Rei came over to me and couldn’t have been more warm and grateful – a completely different person,” he says. “It was the first and only time I’ve met her.” Since then, Card has worked on myriad showpieces for Kawakubo. “I get notes through from Adrian and, on headed Comme paper, which I always love, all of [Kawakubo’s] scanned sketches of adjustments from my designs that she wants.”
Dover Rover, a mascot for the Comme des Garçons Play line at Dover Street Market
As much as he dislikes the cliché, Card is a jack of all trades. For yonks he’s worked closely with bands and artists on their sets and costumes for tours and music videos. This goes all the way back to his nu-rave youth, when he worked closely with his best friend, the director Ferry Gouw, on jobs for Bloc Party, Simian Mobile Disco and Dev Hynes. Since 2016, he’s been a recurring collaborator for FKA twigs, working on both set builds and mask designs, including the ones for her current Eusexua tour. At this point in the game, Card has worked with everyone from Kate Moss and New Jeans to Frank Ocean. Perhaps it’s easier to ask who he hasn’t worked with (but wants to). “I’ve never done Prada, so for a sense of set-design-career completion that would be one,” he says. “Or maybe the Prince estate, to design an album cover [for] unreleased material.”
headpiece design for Comme des Garçons SS24
By the mid-2010s, Card was in a position to support a younger generation of creatives that inspired him – whether that was a young Charles Jeffrey, Ryan Lo or Marta Jakubowski – by designing elaborate runway sets. “I was giving a lot of my finances and energy to these kids, who were very grateful, but at the same time, it was a turning point for me,” he says. Towards the end of the decade, he began focusing on his own art, kick-starting the process as part of a huge exhibition at Phillips auction house. Entitled Hysterical, the 2019 show featured artists like Cindy Sherman, Yayoi Kusama and his long-time hero Paul McCarthy. Set out like a psychedelic dreamscape, the space was also peppered with Card’s sculptures and paintings. “The idea was kind of arrogant, thinking back,” he says with a smile. “Like, ‘These are now my contemporaries.’”
an installation view of the ‘People Mountain People Sea’ exhibition, 2024
Fast forward to last year and Card landed a blockbuster exhibition in Hong Kong at Oi! Gallery. People Mountain People Sea was a multi-section show comprising gargantuan fibreglass sculptures, paintings, an outdoor statue, a whole segment dedicated to another of his characters, Homunculus, and an immersive LED room. In total, 130,000 visitors came by. The concept was ‘Chinglish’ and ‘Chinoiserie’ – bastardised versions of culture that pulled together ancient China with disposable debris. “I’ve scratched that itch for bombastic art,” he says. “But now, I want to do smaller, more intimate projects, maybe five sculptures in a room, rather than 85.”
It seems as if People Mountain… has given Card the impetus to continue evolving as a creative and a fully fledged artist. “The A-word? I didn’t feel like I was worthy to utter it until I’d made my own stuff,” he says. “I’m now in a place where, [though] I can’t quite say the A-word, I do consider myself an artist.” Part of this change is circumstantial. Card now works closely with his boyfriend, Jason Zhang, a studio manager, who handles the business and even steps in as a creative director where necessary. Thanks to Zhang’s streamlining, Card has found more time to paint and sculpt while holding down his day job. “We live and breathe our work,” he says. “There’s no escape and I love it.”
Photography courtesy of Gary Card. Taken from 10 Men Issue 62 – BIRTHDAY, EVOLVE, TRANSFORMATION – out on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
