February 3, 2013 |
JW ANDERSON
DESIGNER
These Irish eyes aren’t smiling, but seriously wide and seemingly obsessed. Anderson designs with an almost-perverse attention to detail. A term that’s easily applied to the brilliantly strange mother lovers who strutted his spring/summer runway.
What’s your earliest menswear memory? A favourite outfit/article of clothing? The first show you saw?
“My earliest fashion moment was being on an easyJet flight with my parents to Ibiza. I saw in the in-flight magazine a pair of concept Jean Paul Gaultier camouflage shorts. I made my mother go round the whole of Ibiza trying to find a pair and, of course, they didn’t exist. We ended up actually bumping into Jean-Paul Gaultier himself.”
Do you have a special talent we’re not aware of? What’s your party trick?
“I make a weird spaceship/alien/God knows sound with my teeth.”
What’s your biggest vice? We won’t tell a soul.
“Starting the day without a sweet treat.”
What gets you out of bed in the morning? Coffee? Croissant? Something harder?
“Coffee, something sweet and at least five Marlboro Lights.”
Dressing up and going out, or Jeremy Kyle reruns – what keeps you up at night?
“Antiques Roadshow. I love a bit of Bargain Hunt, too.”
First piece of menswear you designed? Instant success or epic fail?
“Always an epic fail. I did see-through underwear with women’s jewellery. Disaster.”
Mentors/muses? Who never fails to inspire?
“Benjamin Bruno, my team, Sarah Mower, James Dean, Joe McKenna.”
What are you wearing? For the shoot, we mean. We’re not being filthy, honest.
“Sunspel underwear. Jeans and T-shirt, and always a pair of Converse.”
You can judge a man by his…
“You can judge a man by the back of his head.”
Are the kind of charlady headscarves that featured in your show the new beanies? We thought they were quite urban… A little Tupac Shakur.
“Just kind of like the son of Barbara Daly Baekeland. But Tupac sounds great.”
May we call you J-Dubz?
“Of course. Just like N-Dubz.”
What’s new for men’s SS13, J-Dubz?
“See-through, love, obsession, gender and reality.”
GORDON RICHARDSON
DESIGN DIRECTOR, TOPMAN
His hair is as thick and shiny as the original Rebel Without a Cause, and it affords him a certain agelessness. It’s totally apt for Richardson’s top-dog role at Topman, with him having pulled the high-street brand out the doldrums with a slick of rock’n’roll attitude more than a decade ago.
What’s your earliest menswear memory? A favourite outfit/article of clothing? The first show you saw?
“Ambitious as I was, the first thing I ever made was a blue velvet suit. As a result, I have never really felt that comfortable with velvet again since. I did follow it up with a leopard-print jacket inspired by Rod Stewart, though, to much greater success. Earliest shows would have to be all the Belgian designers’ early shows in Paris, from Dries to Raf to Walter Van Beirendonck, staged in random exciting spaces all over town from under Métro stations to Comme des Garçons shows in an old fruit market, totally pioneering as they were then.”
Do you have a special talent we’re not aware of?
“I’m a good mosher.”
What’s your biggest vice? We shan’t tell a soul.
“I find a double G&T works wonders.”
What gets you out of bed in the morning? Coffee and a croissant or something harder?
“Radio 4 and porridge.”
Dressing up and going out, or Jeremy Kyle reruns – what keeps you up at night?
“Constant insomnia.”
What was the very first piece of menswear you designed? Instant success or epic fail?
“In commercial terms that would have to be a succession of striped T-shirts for Daniel Hechter Paris in the late 1970s. Don’t think they set the world alight, but they probably sold well and established my commercial eye early on in my career.”
Mentors/muses? Who never fails to inspire?
“Musicians who bring out the rock’n’roll in me, from Bowie to Keith Richards to Serge Gainsbourg. Glamorous film idols, from Marcello Mastroianni to David Niven.”
What are you wearing? For the shoot, we mean. We’re not being filthy, honest.
“My everyday basic wardrobe of blazer – b store, now OTHER; slim chinos, Topman; grey sweater – J Crew; and some flurry scarf by Polo Ralph Lauren.”
You can judge a man by his…
“Hair.”
We saw a kind of rebellious schoolboy on the runway. Were you a teenage tearaway yourself?
“Not especially. I preferred to lock myself away in my bedroom, playing guitars and recording layers of tracks onto reel-to-reel tape machines. Did suffer doses of corporal punishment for various misdemeanours at boarding school on numerous occasions, though, so must have been a tad rebellious at some point.”
Skinny jeans – are we officially over them? Can we finally set out nether regions free?
“As with all male fashion it’s a slowly eroding process before a trend finally bites the dust, so I think that, sadly, the skinny jean is going to be around a while longer for the majority of men. It has become such a uniform.”
What’s new for SS13?
“Baggier, looser styles, high-energy colours and a wealth of prints on everything.”
Text Vincent Levy
