“Fall’s theme comes from an encounter that my father had,” said Charlie Casely-Hayford in London’s Seven Sisters neighborhood today (his dad, Joe, with whom he runs the line, wasn’t present). “He kept seeing the same guy over a period of time, and this guy really stood out. He had on a strong block heel, a slim trouser, and an oversize Mac coat—I think what my dad found fascinating about this guy was the strength of his masculinity, but a masculinity that was fortified by these slight feminine elements. He saw this subject as the the reflection of a modern Londoner, a man confident in himself, but without the need to show off.”
This anecdote made for an interesting suggestion: clothing sprung from voyeurism, and then analyzed, across two generations (“Our collections are a conversation between my Dad and I,” added Charlie). Casely-Hayford has always strived for a distillation of London-in-the-moment, but Joe and Charlie’s backstory here, and the resultant wardrobe, had a deeper, almost amaroidal resonance this time around. As the discussion continued, Charlie even said, “Our current generation has access to everything, but knowledge of nothing.”
What this manifested in was a mixture of bits piecemeal-pilfered from subcultures past, along with that observance of self-assured unflashiness, for a unique aesthetic. One one side, there was the bomber jacket hand-painted with the Union Jack, the sort of thing that might be seen, in some form or another, inside the tourist shops of Oxford Street. On the other, there was the rarefied topcoat in a rather dazzling navy neoprene-wool blend (we did not know this textile was possible). A trench coat had a strange, oblong standing collar; trousers were oversize and baggy; a jumper popped up in errant fuchsia; and sweatshirts featured folded-over pleats along the torso. Sometimes things skewed too funky or too blended, but on the majority, the takeaway was this: These were good clothes, built not out of nostalgia or pining for analog inspirations, but rather out of the confidence to say “I’m just going wear what I want, and not for Instagram, not for others.” Documenting London from their Seven Sisters watchtower, the Casely-Hartford’s captured that sense.
