Craig Greene has a lot of stuff to do — but it’s physical rather than emotional.
He loves a superstructure, and creative loft around his clothing. This season he used everyday objects – suitcases, ladders, stirrups and parachutes – to adorn his workwear silhouette, and to broadcast the idea of a “useful man moving into the future” and to the point where ” Man and myth” overlap.
Greene was, of course, thinking about the show venue, the Museum of Mankind in Trocadero Gardens, and also about the point where men stop dreaming about how they would look when they grew up.
Stirrups and straps hung from coats and jackets in white or dusty chalk colors, while some models wore ladders or parachutes on their backs. Others accessorized with suitcases that didn’t open.
Some of Greene’s accessories served a practical purpose: Patches on jackets and coats were turned into zippered bags that could hold a blazer, while the model’s sandals were flat-packed, and later woven around the leg.
All those flaps and stripes and metal objects recall the early 20th century Italian Futurist painters and their love of the nuts and bolts of technology, machinery and industry.
Greene is equally passionate about mechanics, and how certain shapes and materials can make a statement and prolong the lives of the people who wear them.
While it can be hard to walk the streets of London with so many household items, pulling off the actual clothes looked a lot easier: trouser suits with tunic tops; Coats made from papaya tarpaulin (one of Green’s all-time favorite ingredients). And the fuzzy Muppet-y sweater with the cutouts.
And there’s no doubt that dramatic padded or quilted coats in a rainbow of apricot, mint and brown will serve as soft armor for all men who are optimistically charging into the future.
Originally published at Pen 18
