A still from Massey’s Spring 11 film, by Chris Brooks.
Carolyn Massey has long been one of our favourite designers at MENSWEAR, but the love goes beyond a bit of hype every six months at London Fashion Week. She makes clothes that flatter, age beautifully and bridge the widening gap between the futuristic, minimal sides of fashion and the progressively retro, workwear-infused ones with aplomb. And we think she’s kick-started a lot of major trends in her own, unassuming way. Who better to kick off our series of interviews looking behind the labels into the practice, feel and reality of the clothes we all see too much of in magazines and on the internet?
MENSWEAR: What was the starting point for the collection? I’ve read that you were looking at the book (Un) Fashion by Tibor Kalman, which is really exciting.
Carolyn Massey: It’s really great, it’s a great book that I was introduced to when I was a student. Tibor Kalman was a graphic designer who started up Colors magazine and the book’s basically photographs of normal people. I suppose I always will have and always have had an obsession with normal people; it always links back to August Sander, who photographed everyday Germany in the twenties and thirties. It’s just really beautiful, and these guys dress in such a stylish way.
I love the fact that one of the (Un) Fashion men on your moodboard is wearing a skirt, but looks really masculine.
He’ just so chic. I love his attitude… It inspired the skirts in our collection. And it was that combined with images taken from L’uomo Vogue.
There always seems to be a big research aspect to what you do. What kind of is the spark for a collection, is there a first piece you start designing?
It tends to be a mood, or a feeling, or several things that sort of come together at one time. I think fate plays a turn actually! I’m always collecting imagery so I’ve got a few boxes of imagery I’ll just go through. And it’s about what feels right at the time.
Massey during her show at Milan Unica.
Are there six months of the year when you have your design hat on, is it quite regimented?
I think it has to be. If you’re going to be organised enough to make sure you have everything ready for sales then yeah, you have to have a critical path put together. Which is hard, because this idea that ‘I have to be creative within these two weeks’ is crazy, but also there’ll be an evolution of it through that, and I think that’s a healthy thing because as a visual person working on something for six months is really, quite difficult visually- and also imagine that collection will also go into store in six months, so really, visually, you’re working on something for a year. So you have to be quite at peace with it! (laughs) And if you hate it then you really hate it!
Spring/ Summer 11
Is there anything from the past collections you’ve had the hate for? That enough time’s now passed you can kinda say, ‘ok, it doesn’t work.’
I think everyone does, as a designer you’re constantly pulling things apart and going…um… yeah (laughs).
To go back, what are the pieces- and it would be nice to talk about the label as a whole because it’s been, what, 5 years now?
Four and half.
Have you got any plans for the fifth anniversary?
Oh god!
Maybe have a giant couture show with Tori Amos playing piano in the middle like Viktor & Rolf.
Yeah, that sounds great! Something like that… (laughs).
One of many favourite looks from Massey’s Spring/Summer 10 range for Topman.
What are the pieces you’ve been happiest with out of the past collections? The classics, the ones you look back on… with your collections for Topman there seems to be re-interpreted versions of successful pieces.
There’s definitely certain trouser shapes, and the longline tailoring that I’ve developed I’m really, really proud of. I’m a complete perfectionist, it completely tears me apart if something doesn’t come through quite right so there’s definitely been some really fantastic pieces. I wish I’d kept them now! (laughs).
What happens with them, do you end up clearing out…?
I just don’t have the room… and there’s the legendary sample sales and all. When I started I was told by a curator at the V&A, ‘Carolyn, you should keep one of everything’ and I was just like …yeah, yeah I should…. That’s not gonna happen! But there’s certain pieces that I wish I would have kept.
What like?
There’s a tailored jacket of mine that I used to wear a lot but it got nicked backstage at a show. I have the block- and you always have the patterns, so you can revisit anything.
More Spring 11… the shoes were a mix of Timberland and a collaboration for Asos while the bags are a new addition to the label.
Wherever you might be in five year’s time, what do you think might be the signatures your label’s remembered for?
The tailoring and the knitwear, really- and that it’s stuff that people can wear. That’s always been my aim- however dull some people might think that is! I’m always excited about people interacting with my garments, getting feedback and the more practical side of dressing.
Can you talk us through some of your favourite pieces from Spring 11? I think on your London Fashion Week profile you say ‘I’m a detail obsessive’, and all the pieces I’ve ever bought off you are full of detail, things you only notice down the line… those kind of things are really interesting!
There’s a jacket that I did, based on one I bought my boyfriend in a flea-shop in Paris. We made them up, the other one has a hang-tab that’s a ribbon, but some garments you make them up and they just look perfect… it’s just like, ‘oh my god, it’s beautiful!’ And I think that was really one of them, it just really works as a garment. And I like the idea that it’s all about layering, and now you can wear it as a jacket but a month down the line you’d probably want to put something over the top of it.
J Smith Esquire’s hats for Massey. Plus a dashing cagoule in ‘cheeseburger yellow.’ All to be discussed in part 2…
This shoot made me go back and look at her graduate collection. It’s great how she’s balanced the obviously statement (is it just me, or is there a real lack of ‘statement’ pieces for men around this season?) but restrained it in with wit and intelligence rather than throwing in everything sans kitchen sink.
