Pugh in Public

When I first heart that V&A’s Fashion in Motion, which sets out to bring catwalk shows of big designers to the public, would be focusing on Gareth Pugh, I was a little baffled.  Pugh has only really had 2 full blown LFW seasons (not counting his earlier Fashion East/graduate stuff) and in all honesty, would Pugh really appeal to the public in the way say Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier and Hardy Amies have done.  Then I thought again – Fashion in Motion have featured names that at the time would not be called widely established and only then you realise that the V&A want to give the public a glimmering of something great to come, something that has the potential of being big. 

Much has been said in the press about Pugh.  The new ‘enfant terrible’ of British fashion (what is our obsession by the by of labelling everyone and anyone an ‘enfant terrible’).  Pugh rejuvenating and revitalising London Fashion Week.  Bizarre.  Weird.  Wacky.  It’s not all glowing praise though.  There have also been accusations of Pugh being an overrated ‘club kid’ designer and taking too much influence from Leigh Bowery, the 80’s performance artist and designer which Pugh deems as ‘lazy journalism’. 

You either love it or hate it or just don’t get it because everyone loves putting things into niches and working things out.  The one thing you can say about Pugh is that there isn’t anyone really at the moment in the four fashion weeks doing what he does and even though purposeful originality for the sake of being original is never great, when i was at the Gareth Pugh show last season, I never got the feeling that being ‘original’ is the sole purpose of Pugh.  It seems to me that he wants to just subvert ideas and make it so that elements of costume/drama and unconventional materials get infiltrated into everyday wardrobe.  It explains Pugh quotes such as:

‘I want to do for catsuits what Calvin Klein did for pants.’

It explains why the autumn winter 2006-7 collection was quite wearable (obviously because Pugh needs to prove his worth on a commercial scale) yet still had all the attributes that make his clothes recognisable as ‘Gareth Pugh’.  I suppose not everyone will agree it’s a great signature that Pugh has carved out for himself but at least it’s a recognisable one. 

So back to the FIM last Saturday.  It was great to see the catwalk show of all his most memborable pieces (though I was eager to see the AW/07-8 triple layered cube piece which wasn’t in the show) and the soundtrack was also impeccable as always (check out the mixes by Matthew Stone !WowWow!).  As the show played out in the Raphael Cartoon Gallery (I loved the contrast between the Raphael paintings and Pugh’s black PVC playing out in one room), I did think Pugh is blurring those lines between fashion and art that people are uneasy about.  Perhaps it’s better not to label things so clearly and just take it for what it is.  In my eyes, Pugh is a whole lot more wearable than one would think especially when you see the garments up close.  Goat hair black coat.  PVC rain cape.  Got to add them to my winter tick list.   

My video clip is very poorly edited (The Times has a better full frontal one but with a very stunted presenter) and also I managed to accidentally delete the BEST bit of all – the Elumin8 light jacket that was modelled right at the end.  From Pugh’s Spring Summer 2006 collection, the jacket was featured in a HSBC advert with Jade Parfitt modelling it.  I managed to track down the advert which I never saw when it aired:

Not to go all gushy over Pugh but I am also loving the editorial he modelled for in the summer/autumn issue of Arena Homme +.  Photographed by Solve Sundsbo and styled by Pugh’s pal Katy Grand, the editorial titled ‘Batty Boy’ (meaning…) has Pugh in American football shoulder pads, lots of women’s clothing (he’s certainly built for it) and generally looking gaunt, eerie and also slightly reminding me of a more effeminate version of Mr Yves Saint Laurent in his 1971 Pour Hommes ad where he poses nude.  Don’t ask me why I get that feeling.