March 12, 2024 |
Emotions are running high at Ashish. In the designer’s AW24 lookbook, photographer Hazel Gaskin immortalises seemingly kinetic scenes of charismatic models, their faces reflecting a host of emotions. They are shot in a variety of locations around London, each chosen for their resonance with Ashish Gupta himself and his own experience of the “post-brexit, post-pandemic DNA of London”. The idea was to explore community, subculture and the significance of craft within those spaces.
Swathed in quintessential Ashish sequins, effervescent colours and a range of different tartans, a gaggle of Ashish muses wear everything from sunflower dresses and cosy knits, to petticoat-like tiered skirts and tracksuits. Nocturnal monarch Princess Julia with her hair coiffed up high, eyes rimmed with kohl and lips painted a metallic red, wears a slinky, red weathered tartan sequin dress, a sweeping black wool overcoat and crimson pleasers over fishnet stockings. British screen-queen Jaime Winstone walks her dog in an adorable tweed twinset with matching tartan tights and high heeled platform sandals. Backdropped by a Soho sex shop, a grey-haired glamazon dons a shimmering silver dress that spilled out onto the street beneath her.
Throughout, intarsia knits scream in bold, capitalised lettering: “WORLD PEACE, NOW!” reads an ankle-length Fair Isle jumper dress, while a pair of casual sickening pullovers spell out “MIGRAINE” and “NAUSEA”. A standout number is a bedazzled leather jacket that, in an audacious type surrounded by silver studs, says “ANGRY HOMOSEXUAL”. It’s worn with little other than a spike studded jockstrap. The perfect uniform for a hedonistic night spent dancing at Adonis.
Photography by Hazel Gaskin.
