Spring Summer 2018 Menswear

Funny How Secrets Travel
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Today, the very concept of evil has become entertainment. Excessive violence and twisted plots grip television audiences and podcast subscribers. On both sides of the Atlantic a sense of the sinister has come to dominate public consciousness in reality, fiction and fantasy.

Kiko Kostadinov’s fourth collection, Funny How Secrets Travel, explores the severe and surreal drama of murderous transgression. It centres on a single character – by day, he appreciates the lean definition of streamlined deco tailoring, finished with double-breasted Tom Burr-inspired snaps and unexpected bias-cut seams; by night, his attire takes on sinister function, complete with concealed pockets, parallel zips and sleeves that are mindful of sharp movement.

Uniforms remain an eternal lodestone for Kostadinov. This season it is imbued with a sense of complex simplicity. Charles Fréger’s photographic study Bleus de Travail (2002) provided a backbone of utilitarian garments, which Kostadinov has interpreted by unexpectedly twisting and curving seams. The pattern cutting informs the silhouette – a cubist work jacket is even so multifarious that it took more than fifteen samples to get right, echoing the obsessiveness of its subject with utter discretion.

A combination of toxic chartreuse, oxblood, stone grey and pale water-cooler blue takes its cue from Julian Charrière’s Future Fossil Spaces (2014). Materials range from crispy weatherproof Loro Piana nylon wool, to French piqué paired with horizontal-twill cotton, as well as lightweight chalky-hued wool-mohair.

As the soundtrack suggests, the surreal darkness of David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) was a pivotal point of reference for the collection, alongside Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter (1986). Subversive and perturbing, it evokes a sense of duality that manifests itself sartorially in the contrast between chaos and control. Oxblood nylon wool tailoring is constructed with exterior bone-like darting, while shirting collars rise high up to the throat and forensic boiler suits loop through an extra layer.

The ASICS trainers mark the first-ever designer collaboration for the Japanese performancewear brand. Designed by Kostadinov to mirror the colour palette of the clothes, the shoes feature a thin layer of rubber over the woven textile for a heightened sense of surgical precaution.

Credits

Production: Laura Holmes Production
Stylist: Stephen Mann
Casting: Henry Thomas at Bryant Artists
Set Design: Thomas Petherick at CLM
Art Direction: Jamie Andrew Reid
Hair: Lee Machin at Caren using Label M
Make-up: Jenny Coombs at Streeters
Musical Direction: Paride Calvia
Text: Osman Ahmed
Press: A.I. PR
Thank you: 180 Strand, ASICS, Deanna and Laura Fanning, Elliott Farquharson, Daiki Fujita, Laura Holmes, Adam Iezzi, Michael Kopelman, Tinka and Kostadin Kostadinovi, Aitor Martinez, Kai Ninagawa, NEWGEN, Taro Ray, Reneta Samsieva, Mark Tarbard, and Molly Zinar