For Liam Hodges, a beloved staple of the London menswear schedule, nostalgia in fashion has become trite. It shouldn’t be about longing for a perfect time, the show notes explained. There should be no more yearning for a time in which a perfect you existed, either. Instead, looking ahead into 2019, unsure of what’s to come, we should celebrate our mutated identities and our online selves, for this is where the excitement lies.
“It came from books, dealing with social media today, the intensity of what it means to be a modern day cyborg,” Liam explained backstage after the Saturday evening show. The references and ideas that were woven through its tracksuit-heavy collection were conceived by “going into YouTube holes of science theory, and old films like Hackers”. Incidentally, the first CD Liam ever bought was the Hackers soundtrack.
The collection was a vibrant, modern, fresh alternative to the malaise of drab streetwear we often see out in the world. Acid wash, lurid colours, asymmetric shapes, Breton stripes, print T-shirts — a personal highlight being one including the words: “The martians are coming to save us” — neon tie-dye, the clothes were alive and teetering on the edge of another dimension. The models, cast by the brilliant Mischa Notcutt, looked sharp. “All the boys wanna wear it right now! That’s a good sign,” Liam said.
Featuring a collaboration with classic Italian brand, Ellesse, on a number of “snowwear” pieces, items from the collection could be as comfortable on the slopes as on the streets. “Ellesse and us went through their archive, picked through bits, looked through their old literature and stuff and just built on that ski aesthetic, and then put our own mark on it,” Liam further explained. “Things like the magnified salt crystals, putting that together in repeat, and just trying to make it feel like it’s part of this collection but a sort of snowy, separate tech version.”
Credits
Photography Mitchell Sams