The Eye Page 5
When you’re creative, you can’t switch off. You’re stimulated by everything around you.
“It wasn’t so much an intellectual household,” she says, “but a very artistic and creative one.” Rodin’s family continued to play an important role in her career trajectory. Her sister was the one who suggested that she try styling, which led to a 40-year career in the fashion industry.
Rodin claims that while she’s never had a plan, her decisions have always worked out in her favor. “I always say one step informs the next,” she explains. “Maybe with foresight I should have done something else, but I’ve enjoyed the road I’ve taken. I’ve just turned 70, and I’m starting something new.” *
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In 2008, Powerlist named the Casely-Hayfords the most influential black family in the UK. The father-son duo launched the luxury menswear brand Casely-Hayford in 2009.
JOE & CHARLIE CASELY-HAYFORD
Casely-Hayford
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Known for its traditional bespoke tailoring, Central London’s Savile Row, from where the Casely-Hayfords draw inspiration, has been home to the world’s most classic suit designers since the 18th century.
I designed distressed and deconstructed clothes as a metaphor for the turbulent times we were living in.
When asked about his personal style, Joe Casely-Hayford, co-founder of the eponymous London-based menswear brand, describes it simply: future classic. A nod to the brand’s sartorial influences, these two words are the embodiment of Joe and his son Charlie Casely-Hayford’s cutting-edge designs. Merging streetwear and classic men’s fashion, Casely-Hayford simultaneously represents the avant-garde aspects of contemporary fashion, as well as the classic cuts, fits and construction of traditional menswear found on Savile Row.
After studying traditional techniques at London’s Tailor & Cutter Academy, followed by art courses at Central Saint Martins, Joe started his first solo collection in 1984. He discovered a warehouse on Clink Street filled with World War II tents and used the fabric to make a clothing line that he sold to Bloomingdale’s and Joseph. Soon after, Joe was hired as the styling consultant for Island Records, where he dressed everyone from Lou Reed to U2, Bobby Gillespie and genre-defining band The Clash. “I was young and inexperienced when The Clash’s manager contacted me. I didn’t have a studio, so I borrowed one from a friend, covered the walls with examples of my work and got the gig,” Joe remembers. “I emulated the formal gray suits of the establishment, but mine came with the seams torn open and colored linings spilling out. It was a time of social unease, and I designed distressed and deconstructed clothes as a metaphor for the turbulent times we were living in.”
By adorning bands in such designs, Joe was using clothing to make a statement about the era’s social unrest. As a result, he became a key figure during London’s countercultural punk movement in the late ’70s and early ’80s. “I was fortunate to be born at a time that meant I would experience the birth of youth culture and watch the major youth cults emerge in real time,” he says. “From mods and rockers to skinheads and hippies and of course punks and goths. These were exciting times, in which we could challenge the status quo with powerful design statements.”
Likewise, Charlie’s inspirations stem from a similar cultural awareness. Growing up with a fashion designer father, he was exposed to Joe’s creative influences from a young age. “My dad lived through London’s skinhead culture, punk, mods, New Romantics, the rise of hip-hop and rave culture. By comparison, I got the tail end of Brit-pop and the revival of nu-rave. I grew up with my friends creating our style from hybrids of subcultures we had never experienced,” Charlie says. Exploring the generational split between the father-son duo has been part of their design dialogue since the beginning. “A running theme throughout our collection has been dissecting the divide of me growing up in the digital age and the cultural ramifications of this in comparison to my dad’s upbringing,” Charlie says. The hybridization of these different subcultural aesthetics is summarized by Charlie’s self-described style as “sartorial skinhead.”
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Driven by social unrest and working-class solidarity, skinheads in the 1960s and 1980s were known for shaved heads, Dr. Martens boots, high-waisted jeans and T-shirts. Joe’s early '80s work with British punk band The Clash embodied the aesthetic.
This intersection of London culture is woven into every thread of the Casely-Hayford brand, and developing the house DNA happened naturally, as a conversation between father and son. “My dad was creative director of Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes and had just taken the brand onto the runway during Paris Fashion Week for the first time,” Charlie says. “I remember us vividly exchanging a few words backstage about our aspirations, and within a year, he had departed from G&H so we could start a family business.” Together, they recognized a gap in the fashion industry. “In London, there were two distinct strands—heritage companies or younger, more innovative street-influenced brands,” Joe says. “There was no common ground, no crossing point between these two worlds. We felt confident that there was an opening for an authentic British brand with credentials in tailoring and street culture.”
Now, they look at each collection as a reflection of their personal dialogues and perceptions of the ever-evolving landscape of London. “A strong sense of duality emerges through each season’s message, as well as discussions about the disparate elements and jarring cultures that come together to make the city so unique,” Charlie says. From punk to nu-wave, Savile Row to East London, Casely-Hayford maintains cultural relevance while always remaining true to its hometown heritage. The duo strives to make clothes with a memory, with a story and purpose, they say. *
Drake, Sam Smith, James Blake and Lewis Hamilton are just a few of the high-profile names to sport Casely-Hayford designs and embrace the duo’s pluralist approach.
We strive to make clothes with a memory, with a story.
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An only child, Van Assche spent his time sketching, reading magazines and watching music videos.
Kris Van Assche
Berluti
Kris Van Assche
Dior Homme
From 2007 until 2018, Belgian designer Kris Van Assche was at the helm of Dior Homme, making him its longest serving creative director, until he was tapped to take on the role at Berluti. Such longevity was bolstered by his diligent work ethic: known for his immaculate craftsmanship, unexpected narratives and rigorous attention to detail, he is a self-confessed “organization freak.” Describing his methods as “military” in their precision, Van Assche believes his approach is necessary in fashion. “It comes with the job,” he says. “I have a very regular, very punctual way of working.” For Van Assche, routine is not a bad word. “I like to plan ahead as much as I can,” he explains.
The 42-year-old has been planning ahead since he was 10 and discovered that being a fashion designer was “a real job.” An only child, Van Assche describes his parents as “classically conservative people”—his mother was a secretary; his father worked in the car industry—and recalls that he was often obliged to amuse himself. He spent an inordinate amount of time in his childhood bedroom “inventing stories, sketching and drawing” before he discovered Madonna, Jean-Paul Gaultier and fashion design. “I hadn’t really thought about it before, but once I learned that people were making the clothes I was wearing, I immediately knew that that was going to be my direction,” he says.
Following fellow Belgian designers Martin Margiela, Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester, Van Assche left his small Flemish hometown of Londerzeel to study fashion at the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1994. After graduating, he swiftly landed an internship at Yves Saint Laurent with Hedi Slimane, who brought the young designer with him to Dior two years later. In 2004, Van Assche left to launch his eponymous menswear label, but when Slimane departed Dior Homme in 2007, it was Van Assche whom
the fashion house called to replace his former mentor, the poster boy of modern menswear. “This last decade was such a roller-coaster ride. Dior is high-level competition fashion—it’s kind of like the Olympic Games,” he says of the pressure. “We operated on a really small scale at my own label—I had a lot to learn as a twenty-something designer at Dior. It was a very different creative process, but that’s why I accepted the position.”
The thing that I’m ultimately working toward is creative satisfaction, but where that is and with whom that is, I have no idea.
He says a flexible, responsive team is key. “There’s no such thing as the lonely designer sketching in his kitchen,” he laughs. “At least that’s not the way I work. My team is super loyal and super important.” Van Assche approaches every collection in the same way: with a collage he can use to illustrate his ideas and start a discussion. “It’s kind of an organic process; my new collection really begins the day before I show my current one because there are always things you want to improve,” he explains. “I’m in a constant competition with myself, trying to make sure that the next collection is better than the previous one.”
Over the last decade, Van Assche’s collections for Dior have become synonymous with the juxtaposition of Homme’s sartorial suiting and its designer’s love of subcultures—a motley crew of technicolor club kids, prickly punks, new wave dreamers, gender-warped goths and insouciant skaters share the catwalk with sharply dressed dandies, dapper gents and suited and booted mods. “I like ideas that create a conflict,” he says. “When it’s just about one single thing, it gets a little boring.” He adds, “I like to contrast two ideas in one look.”
Indeed, “contrast” is a word that features heavily in the designer’s vocabulary, used to describe his primary inspirations on more than one (or several) occasions. “The first thing I always think about is the contrast—or how to create the clash,” he reflects. “Since Dior Homme is about elegance, tailoring and know-how, I wanted to contrast that with street and sportswear, and ideas of youth culture.” His personal approach is nothing new, he says. “I’ve been playing around with those ideas for a long time, but they worked even better when I contrasted them with the conservative tailoring the brand is known for,” he adds. Van Assche’s appreciation for the unpredictable has garnered a more youthful fan base for Dior Homme, which is reflected by the diverse crew of brand ambassadors—think musicians A$AP Rocky and Oliver Sim of The xx alongside the Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan and Boy George, as well as actors Lucas Hedges, Robert Pattinson, Charlie Plummer and Rami Malek and the cult filmmaker Larry Clark. It’s quite the lineup, yet Van Assche is adamant that he doesn’t design with a muse in mind. “I tend to think that muses are paralyzing, you know? They trap you in a certain world or universe,” he says. Which is not to say that he doesn’t enjoy collaborating with other creatives: “Whether it’s an artist, a photographer, a director or whatever, I’m interested in them because of their personality—that’s the whole point,” he explains. “When I work with an artist, the idea is not to change his art but to find connections with each other,” he adds. “I find those collaborations super inspiring because I like to think that I approach them with an open mind.”
With so much creative stimulation does the designer ever feel uninspired? “Some- times. At that point I think you just have to accept that it’s time to leave the office there’s no point in staring at a blank page,” he says. “If I’m feeling creatively blocked, I like to go home or have dinner with friends. It’s good to press the reset button and clear your head.”
In 2015, Van Assche shuttered his own label to concentrate on Dior Homme full-time.When asked about his plans for the future, having left the brand and started afresh at Berluti, he prefers to focus on the present. “I think it would be really pretentious to have an idea of where I will be in 10 years,” he explains. “The aim, the thing that I’m ultimately working toward, is creative satis- faction, but where that is and with whom that is, I have no idea.” *
LARRY CLARK
Van Assche’s admiration of Larry Clark is well-known. The Kids director is “a major reference point,” Van Assche said in an interview with The New York Times. “It is therefore only normal that I had pictures of him and his work all over my mood boards.” As well as enlisting Clark to appear in the Dior Homme Autumn/Winter 2016 campaign alongside A$AP Rocky, Rod Paradot and Dylan Roques, he commissioned him to create a short film when the house debuted a new sneaker collection. In Clark’s signature lo-fi style, the film follows a youthful cast of Dior-clad models and skaters as they wander and conquer the streets of Paris.
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Of his appointment to Berluti, Van Assche said in a statement, “I have always wanted to build bridges between the savoir faire, the heritage of a house, and my clear-cut contemporary vision.”
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Through Opening Ceremony, Leon and Lim were among the first to introduce Americans to brands like Acne and Topshop.
CAROL LIM & HUMBERTO LEON
Opening Ceremony
Kenzo
One of the most enduring duos in fashion, creative directors, retailers and designers Carol Lim and Humberto Leon credit their prolonged success to a shared mind-set. “We have the same point of view, the same goals and the same inspirations,” explains Lim, who met her best friend and future business partner as a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993. Neither studied fashion—Lim majored in economics, Leon psychology and art—but they share a similar background: both were raised in the Los Angeles suburbs, children of immigrants.
They both name their mothers as early creative influences. “My mom would sew garments at home, and I would always watch her make things from scratch,” says Leon. For Lim, her mother’s jewelry store and the buying trips they went on together were an important part of her childhood. “Humberto and I didn’t know each other then, but we both loved music and going to see shows in LA,” she says. “I think those kind of cultural experiences really set the foundation for our relationship. When we met at Berkeley, we were able to bond over the same things,” she adds.
After graduating, Lim followed Leon to New York, and in 2002 they founded their shop, Opening Ceremony. The name alludes to their passion for the Olympics and, according to Leon, a shared “love for traveling, eating, hanging out and shopping.” The store, in New York’s Chinatown, was a chance to showcase friends’ designs alongside their own playful streetwear and new brands discovered on buying trips everywhere from China to Brazil.
“In a very simple and almost naïve way, we thought, ‘Let’s lift up everything we love and build a job around it,’” Leon says. “It gave us the opportunity to meet a bunch of new people in all different parts of the world,” he adds, describing Opening Ceremony as equal parts retail store and community center. Customers come “to shop or just talk about their day,” he says. “We didn’t know what we were building when it started—it kind of just built itself organically.” The community includes friends and collaborators—actress Chloë Sevigny, filmmaker Spike Jonze, artist Andrew Kuo, Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy, photographer Ryan McGinley and choreographer Justin Peck, to name a few—as well as the New York “it” crowd that has frequented the store since it opened (musician Michael Stipe was reportedly their first customer). “We’re lucky to be surrounded by amazing people,” says Leon, “right down to our Opening Ceremony staff—they’re equally inspiring.”
We thought, ‘let’s lift up everything we love and build a job around it.’
Over a decade later, the Opening Ceremony universe continues to expand. Asked about the secret to their success, Lim says, “The one thing we do, no matter what, is start the day together.” Initially, it was agreed that the economics graduate would look after accounts, leaving Leon to take charge of creative direction, but after 15 years side by side, Lim points out that they have “absorbed each other
’s skill sets in many ways.”
Although neither is a designer by trade (nor do they claim to be), Lim and Leon were made creative directors of the Parisian brand Kenzo in 2011. The decision was a surprise for some, but Lim and Leon quickly silenced any doubters. Taking on a declining brand, they introduced streetwear onto the French fashion house’s runway and watched the customer base switch from 70 percent aged over 50 to 70 percent aged younger than 30.
“We wanted to shake things up and challenge the norm,” Leon says. As to whether they approach Opening Ceremony and Kenzo in the same way, he believes there is a constant pushing of the envelope. “We’ve always been a champion of youth, the underdogs and the new, and we want to bring that same energy to Kenzo. Whether it’s working with an artist instead of a photographer, or doing films instead of ad campaigns, all of these things are inherently Carol and me.”
Another trademark is their unique take on fashion week traditions. Instead of a parade of models down the runway, Lim and Leon’s inaugural Paris Fashion Week show was a series of mini shows at Kenzo’s headquarters, featuring a live soundtrack performed by actor and drummer Jason Schwartzman. Similarly dynamic presentations have foll-owed, including unexpected locations and surprising soundtracks ranging from a skate park to a 200-strong choir belting out Janet Jackson’s 1989 hit “Rhythm Nation.”
“At the end of the day, we’re storytellers,” says Leon. “We’re speaking not just to an elite group of people but to a larger audience—we want the suburban us to be captured by what we’re working on.”