ANALYSIS OF A LOOK: RICKARD LINDQVIST.

Ah! It pays to keep an eye off the East End. Love ‘em as much as MENSWEAR does, there is a huge sweep beyond London of hot young independent men’s designers. Step forward the AMAZING Rickard Lindqvist. Perhaps you know him; perhaps you don’t. If you don’t, then you SHOULD. With a background in tailoring and work for Vivienne Westwood and Nudie under his belt, Lindqvist’s hook is applying experimental cutting techniques to classic tailoring. An intelligent balance between dressed-up and dressed-down. We heart his clothes so much, how could we resist asking him to do an ‘analysis of a look’ for us? Have a nose round his site, look through the online shop, but be sure before you click the ‘Buy All’ button. Blimey, we’ve tried very hard not to.

MENSWEAR: What look have you chosen?
Rickard Lindqvist: The outfit is a grey winter smock, a tatters all checked shirt, grey suspender slacks and a brown herringbone cap. Together with both of the outfits we also showed jewellery form our friend Horasaki. The man’s line and the women’s line where shown together since we see them as one collection with the theme and design principals.

MENSWEAR: What was the inspiration for the look?
Rickard Lindqvist: This was the very first look we made for the collection. Normally we put the looks together at a later stage in the process but we had to make an early photo shoot so this one was finished already in October.  The result of this photoshoot, done by SEEK, turned out to be the foundation for the prints, the styling and the atmosphere for the show.  It worked as source of inspiration and step in the design process.

For some time now I have worked with a one-piece-construction principal and all the garments except for the shirt in this outfit is made according to that principal. It was introduced by French costume designer Genevieve Sevin-Doering and makes the fabrics wrap around the body in ways that turn otherwise classic garments into unexpected new shapes. You could say that the technique creates the design.

Some of Rickard’s SS 09 designs.

MENSWEAR: Was there a story behind making the samples? I.e. what did you find challenging, where and how did you produce them etc…
90 % of our samples are produced in our in-house factory in Gothenburg, Sweden where both of these outfits were made. I do most of the pattern cutting myself with a good helping hand from my “réalisateur premier” John. The biggest challenge is always to handle loads of different things simultaneously; the struggle against time is a harder one than the challenge to come up with design ideas.

More from Rickard SS 09.

MENSWEAR: How do you start working on the collection, what is your team like…?
Rickard Lindqvist: We usually start from where we are standing. i.e. from last collection. It is more like one long process where every new collection is like a new chapter than that every collection is a different project. The chapters have different contents but the story is the same. The design team is loosely set together and differs quite a lot from season to season me and John is always there and then we have other specialist and assistants to help us out.

MENSWEAR: When did you feel that you had ‘finished’ the collection or the look in question?
Rickard Lindqvist: The collection is finished when it has to be finished. Normally a couple of days before the show. The great thing about working with season-bound collections is that we don’t need to worry about the feeling, it just has to be finished…
Of course there is always loads of smaller “when is this “thing” finished?” decisions to be made along the way. These decisions are harder to pinpoint though, I suppose it is an intuitive feeling based on experience and belief in what we are doing.

MENSWEAR: How do you think it might be worn, and by whom?
Rickard Lindqvist: Will be left to the fall to see. This- maybe it sounds strange- is not in our focus when we design. We do our craft and design and then anyone is invited to buy and wear the garments in what way they feel most appropriate.

SO WRONG, SO RIGHT.

I have a real burgeoning bad-taste obsession. Call it a south London thing. Bonnie Tyler cover versions, crap erotic thriller movies, fake Adidas t-shirts (I’d never wear the real thing!), trinket necklaces, garish streetwear, Britain’s Got Talent… it’s the flipside of the ‘me’ that admires the perfect minimalism of Raf Simons or Juun. J.

On the ‘bad taste’ side definitely comes these t-shirts. Do you remember the ludicrously-named I.C.R. vs. Deth Killers of Bushwick? That label that had an almost impossible amount of hype loaded onto it? But those were the days of ludicrously expensive hand-painted t-shirts, Zoltar the Magnificent and deconstructed Sergio Tacchini jumpers sold in that fondly remembered shop, Burro, in Covent Garden. Essentially the kind of shop the ‘early adopters’ wouldn’t be seen DEAD in today.

I.C.R.V.D.K.O.B, meanwhile, have reinvented themselves as perhaps the ultimate bad/good taste label, Deth Killers 2000. They’re bringing out the TEN SHADES OF AMAZING t-shirts below throughout the year, available from their site. Each one will drop across the months in limited batches of 2000 and has been produced by a sci-fi/fantasy artist based around the designer’s narratives about some kind of ‘nebulous’ apocalyptic event, where bike gangs fight over a ruined world or something. BASICALLY TIP-TOP, but rather confusing too as their long and convulted (again very retro) backstory talks up a fake PS3/DS game, sci fi novel, and lots of other slightly self-indulgent words.

Whatever. I’m a sucker for a detailed, amazing t-shirt that is basically timeless and will go with absolutely everything, such as these. They’re the best t-shirts I’ve seen forever, and I love how unfashionable (dare I say, EARLY NOUGHTIES) that all-over print idea is. Makes me long for those ridiculous hand-painted t-shirts all over again.

MENSWEAR IS SORRY…

For TWITTERING more than BLOGGING at the moment. Time’s quite literally slipped away and as you may have seen, the all new Buckstyle has now launched! If you’re looking for the next issue of BUCK it’s here, only updated every week rather than monthly. Lots of good stuff including a shoot I recently did in PECKHAM of all places, with some nice clothes courtesy of CAROLYN MASSEY, BURBERRY PRORSUM, DRIES VAN NOTEN &c, &c. Also coming up: an editorial from CELIA exploring her favourite colour, lots of shopping pages, some RATHER BIG SURPRISES, and the GO.BUY.NOW. blog with things we like every day. It’s like the old Buck, times a million basically.

This little look from our NEW FORMALITY shoot is one of my favourites; one of the doubled-over jackets from JUUN. J S/S 09. Two for the price of one, and slickly reminiscent of Batman’s nemesis TWO-FACE. Teamed with some awesome dip-dye trousers. It’s always a shame when the clothes have to be sent back to their homes.

Photography by Ross Trevail. Styling by Elliott James Sainsbury. Creative Direction by Steve Doyle. Buckstyle May 2009.