Casely-Hayford is the product of two generations of English designers: father Joe Casely-Hayford, a London mainstay since the eighties, at which time he was a favorite of the Clash, and son Charlie, who wended his way from styling gigs into the family trade. Each has had a ringside seat for the styles of his generation, but neither seems inclined to wallow in the past. The gaze goes forward. What they want, Charlie said backstage after their debut show for the line they launched in 2009, is to survey "youth culture for a new generation. This decade doesn't have one yet."
They're formidable mash-up artists, which would seem to suit a new generation, one weaned on Wikipedia. Anything you can find down the rabbit hole is eligible to go into the mix. The winning charm of the Casely-Hayford collection was the way it culled from everywhere: youth cultures past (skins, punks, grunge kids), sportswear, proper tailoring (Joe was, for a time, the designer of Savile Row's Gieves & Hawkes), pop culture, and art history. The wood-grain prints referenced Cornelia Parker's Anti-Mass, a sculpture made from the burned planks of a Baptist church, with a largely black congregation, that was torched by arsonists. Casely-Hayford's graphic treatments were inspired by De Stijl. But that didn't rule out scraggly jewelry by the London legend Judy Blame, Hawaiian floral knits, or grungy flannels doubled into alterna-twinsets—long, swingy cardigans matched by shirts knotted around the waist.
It's presumptuous to claim to define a generation. (Lena Dunham is still being raked over the coals in many corners for claiming to want to, even in satire.) But the Casely-Hayfords don't seem to be dictating as much as spinning off the possibilities in their exponential combinations. If that cost cohesion, it paid dividends in energy (aided and abetted by a thumping soundtrack of as-yet-undiscovered local bands you've never heard of). "Things don't always jell perfectly. We like the abrasion," Charlie said. But that suggests a rougher experience than the one encountered. The disparate parts were smoothed into a variegated elegance. There's no better proof than the handful of smart trompe l'oeil two-in-ones.
