Liam Hodges was celebrating his brand’s sixth anniversary today. The RCA and Fashion East graduate has spent the years since 2014 growing and expanding his eponymous label into one of the biggest on the LFWM schedule. His is a street-focussed, subcultural, post-modern take on London menswear, and its found a ready and receptive audience. Loved equally by rappers, hypebeasts, fashion fans, and Love Island stars — one of whom was in the audience today.
This spring/summer 20 was also Liam’s first season post-Newgen, out on his own in the big, bad world. Fending for himself, and it found Liam in reflexive mood — pondering who we are, and who you want to be.
So this season Liam sent out a series of looks that played with identities and multiplicities, exploring our disrupted sense of self as seen through the strange hell of social media. The set design, by Louis Gibson, contrasted that technological focus with a series of cute flowers and butterflies in bright primary colours. It set the scene for the clash between the organic and inorganic, tech dystopias and getting back to nature.
It was, true to Liam Hodges style, a patchwork — each piece cut away, layered, styled up, wrapped about the body, half worn. It was about “each boy having their own personality” Liam explained, “like swiping through a computer game and building your own character.”
So among all this identity play, there were earthy browns and greens, spray painted flowers, performance techwear, a second Ellesse collaboration, luminous greens and pinks, sci-fi prints that read “Meltdown” and “The future keeps coming”. There were cosy knits, pinstripes and patchworks and tartans. Among the melee Liam’s strengths revealed themselves, the ability to grapple with ideas about modern life and the society we live in, while creating exciting, wearable clothes.
