i was brought up in a working-class
household and a working-class
neighbourhood environment
and our first engagements with fashion
came through street style and culture we
didn't actually call it that at that
time it was just style the idea of
uniform has deeply informed my
relationship with tailoring
our obsession where i came from was
about
protection
it was almost a response to maybe being
indifferent to society maybe feeling
like there is a wider fear across
society but the notion of protection and
and utility almost as a right of passage
growing up black british in the uk
moving from boyhood to manhood
this overt idea of masculinity
and wanting to signal that
has filtered into
a cold wall as a truth
my
relationship
with
material and with fabric and how that
builds into
the label i founded a cold war
really
looks to
convey how
material
and form
can be used to cleave to the body hold
the body contort the body my educational
background and interests really lie
within product design graphic design and
industrial design that's what i did
training so when it comes to
creating garments and working with
fabric it's the mind of an industrial
designer
the mind of one who is obsessed with
the exoskeleton of society you know the
raw materials the alabaster the
sandstone the marble the terracotta
which has built contemporary culture and
historical cultures
that relationship with treating fabric
as material has really built this
architectural way of conveying clothes
and garments
i describe
the clothes i make by placing them into
two different caches the first cachet is
more of a process of creating it reveals
itself through hand sketches through
feeling and touching materials through
working for my team the second cache
speaks to contemporary culture to the
immediate to pop culture it's how people
live and dress and what they need from
their garments in the now
the relationship between
the
converge gila
and
historical
brass and steel and iron
breastplates
is immediate and direct
for myself it was about looking at what
is
the purpose
of armor for the now for day-to-day use
and this prospect of
uh you know being able to insulate the
body
uh being able to enable the body
to move through a commute or through a
cityscape
so this is the
convergile
from our ss20 a cold wall runway
collection
at this point it's become
two degree
signature of the brand and how the brand
conveys these prospects of
protection
material
historical references
and masculinity
you've got around three pieces here and
then you've got decorative seam line
details which run throughout and we run
between twin needle stitches down to
having some of the interior pockets
which have like a welt and jetted pocket
so the prospect of functionality and
concealment and embellishment is totally
inverted the closure system for the the
main opening which runs down the center
front from the chest
you've got this um
it's interesting it's almost like a
reductive lapel to a degree you know the
type of lapel you would expect to see on
like an overcoat of sorts
and actually we've brought in this idea
of asymmetry and cleaving reflected in
the ruching into how the lapel itself
sits i should probably
mention slightly and this idea of just
having like utility snaps which is
totally concealed um and also looking at
how velcro can be utilized if you think
back to japanese americana or even if
you think into world war ii the
invention of well plastic coming to the
fore and plaster soles start to come
into the fore of construction for
military wear this is where this idea of
bringing in velcro straps comes into
play for the construction itself
the prospect here is really to produce a
personal architecture for the body that
works with the diaphragm of the body
this also trickles down into material
color you know looking at these slates
and mores and torps and creams you see
of course in such a incredible
environment
such as the vna historically you know
these are the tones of eternal makers
that we know throughout history but
they're also the tones of mid-20th
century
public housing they're also the tones of
21st century industrial estates
fashion design
for me is the ability to
tell a story
with garments
and material and shape and color it is a
medium of the arts
it is beyond apparel
a lot of my
influences
again lean from the prospect of how
antiquity has been
conveyed through
the age of enlightenment within the 15th
and 16th century it's been looking at
frescoes it's been looking at
you know the work of michelangelo and
seeing how beauty and strength can
coalesce with one another that for me is
the
overarching intention here it is to
produce
timeless
eternal works
that stand and live within the great
halls and museums and galleries of the
world
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