Craig Green: Cool trouble in paradise from the one-time LVMH Prize finalist

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 12, 2017

Conceptual yet also very cool, Craig Green unveiled London Fashion Week Men’s most compelling collection Monday morning, even if one had a hard time working out where exactly to wear many of his wacky nomadic clothes.

 “Shamanic: Paradisical, but darker and darker,” smiled Green backstage, after a finale that featured immense tunics made of double-ply cotton, multi-stitched together, like 18th century corsetry – done in abstract floral prints. Ideal clothes for an art gallery opening, though not perhaps for office work.
 
Green will forever be known as the avant-garde finalist of the LVMH Prize. But he is also a great conceptualist. Which is why he opened his show with wooden-frame kites hung vertically in front of the models’ torsos; so large they covered their faces. The designer called them: “walking altarpieces.”

He then took micro-fiber tops and scrunched and twisted them into spiky points with interior string fastenings to give them all organic shapes. Staged in a huge brick cellar deep underneath a giant iron railway bridge to a fantastic classical music soundtrack courtesy of ace French DJ Frederic Sanchez.
 
Though the highlight was the finale of massive ponchos and capes in abstract desert hues that will be distilled down and copied by high street chains worldwide. Another reason one comes to London menswear collections. The young designers here have tiny businesses but real global influence.