COATS FOR WINTER

This project began with a commission from a private client. This piece was a refined and elegant overcoat, classic and simple, in a stunning deep blue cavalry twill cloth. From this point my mind turned to how I could take this classic aesthetic and re-imagine it, reconstruct and play with its form. The resulting designs all share the vocabulary of the coat but either by recontextualising it, or emitting parts, or adding elements, take the classic men’s overcoat to a different place.

‘DRESS’ COAT

This dress takes the langue of the coat into an entirely different form, from its generous shoulder to the lapel around the decolletage and the fabric, a spongey and earthy black Harris tweed. The cut also has some drape in it, incorporating the flow of a piece of tailoring.

QUARTER COAT

This men’s jumpsuit takes the coat and blends it into the body, moulding it into the trouser and the back to make it a sculptural feature, leaving the chest bared, bringing an item that usually covers a covering, the outermost, to a new more intimate context with the body.

CONCERTINA COAT

From the front this might appear to be a classic coat, perhaps a little draped but much the same as many coats, but as it turns it reveals its true character, a woolly and expansive garment, the sleeves in profile inspired by 19th century paisley shawls, the mobility in the arms coming not from volume of cloth in the back of the body but from wing like concertinas that unfurl as the arm moves.