August 22, 2017 |
What does an award-winning collection look like? Well, this. The award in question? The International Woolmark Prize, which Brit duo Cottweiler, made up of Matthew Dainty and Ben Cottrell, did us proud and took home last year, winning the big prize for menswear. Now, the collection that won it for them – a capsule made up of sheer Merino wool base-layers, quilted waterproof outerwear and tech-y wool-blend fabrics – will be available from today, exclusively in the UK at London’s very own Harvey Nics. Here’s what the boys had to say about the special capsule.
“We tend to research really heavily before beginning design on each collection,” says Dainty. “Something that we’ve been doing over the years is building up our own image archive that we regularly draw on. We will talk in depth about what’s inspiring us as individuals and then try and experience that for real, and then we shoot what we’re researching and use that for the new seasons’s mood boards, and that really varies, but it tends to come from things like groups of boys, communities, like New Age religions, cults, YouTube fetish groups, all sorts of things.”
Those gathered references were central to their Woolmark capsule – this time combining them with Woolmark’s own material heritage to create something they’ve never done before. “We’ve used a lot of synthetics in the past but the amazing thing about Merino wool is that it has some really unique properties. We’re always looking to make things windproof and waterproof… so for us it was about combining the two to create something unique and innovative” said Dainty.
In typical Cottweiler fashion, though, they are continuing to innovate and push what’s possible with wool. “There’s a fabric we’ve been developing with an Italian supplier that has a semi-transparency to it, which we’ve overlaid over 100% Merino wool, so it’s about combining our aesthetic with that of Merino wool”.
And expect to see more of this fabric tinkering from the boys. As Dainty says: “innovation is really important to us… as the brand grows we have more opportunities to develop our own specialised fabrics, which is something that we’ve always wanted to do.” We can’t to see what they come up with next.
Pieces from the limited-editions collection will be available to buy online on ssense.com as well as in Harvey Nichols (London), L’Eclaireur (paris), Hudson’s Bay (Toronto), Isetan (Tokyo) and David Jones (Sydney).
