LFW SS18: Gareth Pugh

BRITISH fashion designer Gareth Pugh decided to make a film to present his SS18 collection which was debuted at IMAX, Waterloo, the biggest screen in Europe, and made in collaboration with photographer and film-maker Nick Knight, choreographer Wayne McGregor and the artist Olivier de Sagazan who appears as the other pugilist in the piece along with Pugh himself. The film is an uncomfortable confrontation tour de force.

It begins with two besuited men (Pugh and de Sagazan) seated civilly enough who then begin to grapple and plaster themselves in clay and paint, in red, black and grey which then disintegrates. Nightmarish scenes and figures follow – golems, nosferatu vampires, soily sinews stretch and contract – writhing distending, birthing and rebirthing, the messy clay, the primordial soup of life itself.

Apocalyptic flames appear, out of which rises a seething crowd sequing into liberated dancers wearing black off-shoulder floating shifts printed with flames which are then replaced by a modernist sci-fi future dawned peopled by women in gold metallic fabric.

Pugh explains his concept for the piece as “a meditation on beauty and barbarism” referencing the paintings of Francis Bacon (and I allusions to work of the contemporary photographer Antoine D’Agata here too) and the concept of duende,  which is used to denote the “primitive creative instinct, described by the poet Lorca as “a dance with the devil; a feeling of irrationality and earthiness, characterised by a heightened awareness of death”, representing “the very dearest thing that life can offer” which Pugh’s “sole concern” for this season.

When the collection appears at the end of the film, worn by models with their eyes digitalised out, the looks are in the strong colours Pugh is known for but along with rigorously structured suits, exactly cut and protective; high collared jackets, shiny metallic red coats; we see fluid silk dresses too. All bold and powerful. A wonderful thought-provoking collection.

by Caroline Simpson