Tag: LCM

An Inspiration: Maison MIHARA YASUHRIO

American pop culture and post-war Switzerland form the basis of Mihara Yasuhrio’s debut London collection

Image courtesy of Mihara Yasuhiro
Image courtesy of Mihara Yasuhiro

Ahead of his debut at London Collections Men, PORT caught up with the Tokyo-born designer, Mihara Yasuhiro, to learn more about his label Maison MIHARA YASUHRIO. Named ‘No Club Lone Wolf’, Yasuhiro’s collection sought its inspiration through Americana pop culture and the youth of post-war Switzerland.

“My inspiration is from a photo album called Rebel Youth, by Karlheinz Weinberger,” Yasuhiro explains. “The album is about a Swiss youth culture from late 50s and 60s and their hobbies.” .

Image courtesy of Mihara Yasuhiro
Image courtesy of Mihara Yasuhiro

Weinberger, an amateur photographer, managed to capture a scene that has rarely been documented. He candidly shot working-class teenagers in a post-war Switzerland, who adorned themselves in personalised, studded motorcycle jackets – a nod to the the Hells Angels – and denim, whilst accessorising with eccentric, industrial-like chains, pins and oversized belt buckles.

“When I was a child, I used to have an interest in youth cultures like this,” Yasuhrio adds. “They influence my design aesthetic a lot.”

miharayasuhiro.jp

An Inspiration: E.Tautz

Ahead of E.Tautz’s LCM presentation, Patrick Grant of E.Tautz explains how he found inspiration in photographs of lower league European football from the mid-90s

Calerina, Switzerland by Hans van der Meer
Calerina, Switzerland by Hans van der Meer

“At the start of the 1995 football season, Hans van der Meer, a Dutch photographer, began a project which would then run for 10 years. Whilst travelling around Europe, he photographed lower league football matches: the players, the spectators, the playing fields, the landscapes, and townscapes in which they sat.

“Van der Meer painted a compelling picture of the lower league’s extraordinary diversity and its anomalies, but also the striking similarities that exist between these men of Europe as they play out their sporting fantasies. It’s epic, tragic, and often faintly comic. A cheek by jowl with everyday life. His images tell the story of a sporting struggle. Accidental spectators watching bemusedly from doorways, car tires for benches, priest’s vestments, livestock grazing, washing, waving on washing lines like so many scarves on terraces.

“We’ve always enjoyed and been enjoyed by sports clothes. It harks back to the brand’s heritage. We like the shapes and the motifs, the stripes, hoops and chevrons. But we also like the oddness of the everyday, which van der Meers’ work captured.”

www.etautz.com

www.hansvandermeer.nl

MAN SS17 Photo Essay

Sophie Green goes backstage at the MAN SS17 show at LCM to discover the intricate cosmos of newcomer designers Fengchen Wang and Charles Jeffrey Loverboy.

Photography by Sophie Green

An Inspiration: Nigel Cabourn

Nigel Cabourn, the connoisseur of outerwear, exploration and vintage, tells us how New Zealand explorer Sir Edmund Hillary continues to inspire his work

Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay (1953)
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay (1953)

In the lead up to his SS17 presentation at London Collections Men, British designer Nigel Cabourn explains why, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first non-Nepalese climber to summit Mount Everest, is a continuing source of inspiration.

From 'The Ascent of Cabourn' book by Nigel Cabourn (2003)
From ‘The Ascent of Cabourn’ book by Nigel Cabourn (2003)

“Everything I design comes from either a moment in history, an inspirational person or a vintage garment. I have so many heroes from the past 100 years of history, so to pick just one is a tough ask for me. But if I have to single out one then it has to be Sir Edmund Hillary.

“The 1950s is probably my favourite period for inspiration, which I’ve used a lot in my designs particularly in the past 15 years. Top of the tree in this period for me is Hillary – he was an amazing mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist.

From 'The Ascent of Cabourn' book by Nigel Cabourn (2003)
From ‘The Ascent of Cabourn’ book by Nigel Cabourn (2003)

“Two of his best-known feats at this time have inspired collections by me. His ascent of Everest in 1953 and becoming the first man to do so alongside Sherpa Tenzing Norgay inspired my 2003 ‘Ascent of Cabourn’ collection.

“This then gave birth to some of my now classic pieces – the Everest Parka and Mallory and Cameraman jackets; and his participation in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition when he reached the South Pole overland in 1958 in a Ferguson tractor, inspired my recent AW15 collection.”

cabourn.com

Margaret Howell Photo Essay AW16

Simple yet effective, the British guardian of minimalism continued her sartorial quest with a predominantly dark and plain collection defined by her traditional loose and comfortable silhouette and a few statement knitwear pieces

Photography Agnes Lloyd-Platt

Daily Doodle: E Tautz AW16

Patrick Grant kept his signature 50s volume but added 80s pop tunes and colours, creating a perfect gang of sartorial roller derby boys

image

Illustration Billy Clark

My Inspiration: Nasir Mazhar AW16

Ahead of his LCM show, British designer Nasir Mazhar discusses the speed of fashion and how the demands can cripple creativity

This collection started off from an extremely frustrated and pressurised place. There is a constant pressure for designers today to produce more clothes, more looks, more sales pieces, get more stockists and more press… it’s really crippling creatively physically and mentally. I started to feel trapped a couple of seasons ago and I think this season I just thought ‘fuck it’.

Last season, the collection went all black with hardly any branding. It was like the beginning of a cleansing period, and we’ve now entered the second season of it; I felt like we needed one more season of cleansing. I wanted to go back to my original ethos for creating – I used to be an artist free to create whatever I wanted, and recently I have just felt like a machine churning out clothes to sell.

I haven’t been thinking about sales pieces and prices and range-planning or anything like that. I stopped looking at the reference boards about three months ago… They became irrelevant. I know what I’m into and what I really want to see people wearing.

I love club wear and tracksuits; I love goths and techno heads. I love fetish wear and weird stuff, so with all of this in mind we started toiling. We’ve always worked in an instinctive way, there isn’t much drawing or designing on paper. We have a technique or reference to shape to start with and then we begin.

I feel inspired by the origins of how I started designing and how my brand was born. I’m inspired by all those small designers and craftspeople making weird stuff in their little workshops that not a lot of people will buy, but it’s interesting, beautifully made, and totally original.

www.nasirmazhar.com

Illustration Nasir Mazhar

Photo Essay: Belstaff SS16

Belstaff showed utilitarian and sand-coloured clothes at their Old Billingsgate Market presentation, inspired by WWII Desert Rats and UK explorers including Lawrence of Arabia

Belstaff SS16

Belstaff SS16

Belstaff SS16

Belstaff SS16

Belstaff SS16

Photography José Cuevas