Welcome to the Engine Room: a murky purgatory, a toxic labyrinth, a wasteland. Explored by Charles Jeffrey in his latest Loverboy collection, the usual fantastical satire was ever-present, egged on by the somewhat surrealist work of fellow Scott, artist and playwright John Byrne and his famed 1987 literary trilogy, The Slab Boys. Highlighting the nuances of the working-class experience, it was presented in three discordant parts, creating a socially critical class system of characters.
First we met the “Workers”, who walked out bedecked in warm, protective layers stamped with potato sacks, carrying paraffin lamps and embellished by haphazard trinkets that looked as though they were made by magpie-eyed mudlarkers in the face of adversity. The “Workers” were responsible for feeding the furnaces that would keep the heavenly, floating, fictional city of Ajuka from falling out of the sky. As they exited the engine room, calloused and unclean, with smudged charcoal darkening their facial features, the Loverboy troupe charged against hardship.
The second group were the “Posers”, former “Workers” who now “set the sartorial agenda in Ajuka”, pouring into the city’s many luxury boutiques. The “Posers” wore sleek tailoring, emphasised by oversized ruffles, tartans and politically patterned ornate prints. These were paired with fearsome, platform claw-foot kicks or eclectic Fair Isle knits with fossicked stones and sundries woven in. There were Byrne-inspired paintings plastered on high-octane pieces, too.
The third and final part introduced us to the “Snakes”, unflatteringly described as “Ajuka’s arch gossip merchants who disseminate the city’s news.” A clothing-made commentary on the global mass media, their uniform was heavily influenced by the tools of their trade and their medium of choice – the newspaper. Marked by balderdash scribbles and stark, soulless newsprints across tailored tweeds, they appeared rather austere in nature and in dress.
Straying away from the UK, Jeffrey made his Milan debut this weekend, choosing the city for its nightlife, tram-tracks and can-do spirit – all elements that reminded him of his native Glasgow. The result was a subversive exploration of identity through costume; the industrial revolution, revolving in the modern day and evoking a new co-ed coquette aesthetic with a touch of grunge glamour.
Photography courtesy of Charles Jeffrey Loverboy.
