Now that I had an idea of where I was heading, it was time to gather the content. The best place to start was to find the designers that inspire me, gain some background on them and then hopefully delve further into this idea of 'theory'. Hopefully the theory is going to come from the time in which said designer was creating their work, their influences, or even their processes.
I am going to collect research (including imagery) from a number of different resources, then once I've got a large collection of information, it is then that I will start to categorise it and put it into some sort of readable content.
I am going to collect research (including imagery) from a number of different resources, then once I've got a large collection of information, it is then that I will start to categorise it and put it into some sort of readable content.
Meadham Kirchhoff
Ed Meadham and Ben Kirchhoff are well known for using the runway as a way of expressing their feelings on feminism and alienation. For them, it's not just about the clothes, it's about so much more. Each review that comes back, picks up on this, and they make their stance on subjects very well known...
"How did this happen? Once upon a time, Ed Meadham and Ben Kirchhoff were the angry young men of English fashion. They used their runway as a stage for expressing feminist rage, romantic torpor, alienation. Now they're hosting an interplanetary disco. What?
None of the above should be read as a complaint. Quite the contrary: For Meadham Kirchhoff, jubilation is its own kind of political stance, a way of telling all the depressed, enraged, alienated misfits out there to screw the world and come join the party. There's no revenge sweeter than turning a frown upside down."
(source)
Ed Meadham and Ben Kirchhoff are well known for using the runway as a way of expressing their feelings on feminism and alienation. For them, it's not just about the clothes, it's about so much more. Each review that comes back, picks up on this, and they make their stance on subjects very well known...
"How did this happen? Once upon a time, Ed Meadham and Ben Kirchhoff were the angry young men of English fashion. They used their runway as a stage for expressing feminist rage, romantic torpor, alienation. Now they're hosting an interplanetary disco. What?
None of the above should be read as a complaint. Quite the contrary: For Meadham Kirchhoff, jubilation is its own kind of political stance, a way of telling all the depressed, enraged, alienated misfits out there to screw the world and come join the party. There's no revenge sweeter than turning a frown upside down."
(source)
LFW Biography
English Edward Meadham and French born Benjamin Kirchhoff graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2002. The pair launched their womenswear collection, Meadham Kirchhoff, as part of Fashion East in February 2006.
Designer names: Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchhoff.
Origin: Edward is English. Benjamin is from Sete in the South of France.
Design background: Edward studied womenswear and Benjamin studied menswear, both at Central Saint Martins. They launched a menswear label, "Benjamin Kirchhoff", after graduating.
Design signatures: “We do not to have a signature but rather a handwriting. We like to tell stories in different ways.”
How would you describe the Meadham Kirchhoff woman? “Uncompromising, aware and individual.”
Trademark pieces: Feminine designs that are considered and executed in an old fashioned manner.
What’s next for your brand? “Fall Winter/2012.”
Who are your design heroes? “John Soane and Courtney Love.”
What are your favourite cultural hotspots in the capital? “ Party Party on Ridley Road and the Wallace Collection.”
In five years’ time I will be... “Either dead or still doing it.”
What encapsulates London fashion for you? “London is such an eclectic and unpredictable place. This is reflected in the way people present themselves and in the broad spectrum of designers that the city produces. London is a really good environment to absorb what inspires you and make of it what you will. Anything goes.”
Meadham Kirchhoff won the Emerging Talent - Ready-to-Wear award at the British Fashion Awards 2010.
Review - Spring RTW 2012 by Sarah Mower
For years, people have been wondering whether London’s instinct for fashion performance had actually died out, due to the expense, or the focus on selling—or just the fact that there’s been no one since Alexander McQueen or Hussein Chalayan who’s had either the desire or the caliber of ideas it takes to muster the kind of performance that will make an audience’s hair curl. Well, Ed Meadham and Benjamin Kirchhoff have been building up toward something over the past three seasons, and this time, they let out an unforgettably hilarious, uncool, funny, and profound performance about the artificial makings of girlishness, or what Meadham called “something that’s lovely and sweet and antifeminist—about taking all the things that little girls are taught are beautiful and pretty from an early age—and destroying and celebrating them at the same time.”
This was the fourth act in what they’ve been calling their “Cosmology of Women.” When the audience was let into the show space (Topshop’s runway venue at the old Eurostar terminal, which has been lent to young designers all week), they were confronted by the sight of a stage-set of pastel balloons and a mysterious tented semicircular podium shrouded in cheesy synthetic gold lamé curtains. The music—including the Spice Girls, had already brought out a spontaneous cheer of audience recognition—and that was before the show had even begun. Then, when a troupe of fourteen faux Courtney Loves ran out in pastel satin baby-dolls, dabbed themselves with powder puffs, mimed putting on lipstick, and suddenly broke into a rendition of the can-can, the normally granite-faced onlookers cracked into open laughter. And this was just the warm-up.
Out filed a line of models done up every which way in cute pastelly pile-ups of mini-kilts, feather and tinsel bloomers, baby-coat jackets, frilled pinafores, heart-shaped bodices, sparkle-embroidered cardigans, dresses that looked like cakes, circle-skirted marabou coats, handbags in the shapes of teddy bear and doll-faces, all worn with blonde bubble-wigs and humongous wedges with gold ruffles and pom-poms on the toes.
Just as they disappeared, act two opened, with a corps of little ballerinas in white tutus, red shoes, and fairy-wings tripped out to dance—and then, kitsch drama building to a crescendo, the gold curtain opened to reveal a podium of models posing like showgirls or beauty queens at a pageant.
What to make of their gorgeously designed, sumptuously embroidered bathing suits, seventeenth-century sack-backed coats, and diamante knickers? If they weren’t fashion, exactly, Meadham Kirchhoff’s heart and soul had gone into every wildly elaborated and researched detail. From the girly party invitations that had arrived before the show to the stickers on the nails, the intensity of the care and imagination these designers, working with an army of interns, put into this show made it one of those rare events that transcends the limits of mere commerce. What did it mean? All kinds of poignant things about childhood and the sexualization of girls, and longing and confusion and fun, all at the same time. But on another level, this amazing performance reflected the colorful culture of dressing up that has come out of London’s East End underground fashion friendship-circle in the past year—and the sheer talent and commitment of two exceptional men.
This was the fourth act in what they’ve been calling their “Cosmology of Women.” When the audience was let into the show space (Topshop’s runway venue at the old Eurostar terminal, which has been lent to young designers all week), they were confronted by the sight of a stage-set of pastel balloons and a mysterious tented semicircular podium shrouded in cheesy synthetic gold lamé curtains. The music—including the Spice Girls, had already brought out a spontaneous cheer of audience recognition—and that was before the show had even begun. Then, when a troupe of fourteen faux Courtney Loves ran out in pastel satin baby-dolls, dabbed themselves with powder puffs, mimed putting on lipstick, and suddenly broke into a rendition of the can-can, the normally granite-faced onlookers cracked into open laughter. And this was just the warm-up.
Out filed a line of models done up every which way in cute pastelly pile-ups of mini-kilts, feather and tinsel bloomers, baby-coat jackets, frilled pinafores, heart-shaped bodices, sparkle-embroidered cardigans, dresses that looked like cakes, circle-skirted marabou coats, handbags in the shapes of teddy bear and doll-faces, all worn with blonde bubble-wigs and humongous wedges with gold ruffles and pom-poms on the toes.
Just as they disappeared, act two opened, with a corps of little ballerinas in white tutus, red shoes, and fairy-wings tripped out to dance—and then, kitsch drama building to a crescendo, the gold curtain opened to reveal a podium of models posing like showgirls or beauty queens at a pageant.
What to make of their gorgeously designed, sumptuously embroidered bathing suits, seventeenth-century sack-backed coats, and diamante knickers? If they weren’t fashion, exactly, Meadham Kirchhoff’s heart and soul had gone into every wildly elaborated and researched detail. From the girly party invitations that had arrived before the show to the stickers on the nails, the intensity of the care and imagination these designers, working with an army of interns, put into this show made it one of those rare events that transcends the limits of mere commerce. What did it mean? All kinds of poignant things about childhood and the sexualization of girls, and longing and confusion and fun, all at the same time. But on another level, this amazing performance reflected the colorful culture of dressing up that has come out of London’s East End underground fashion friendship-circle in the past year—and the sheer talent and commitment of two exceptional men.
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