18.01.11

LFW AW11 Designer Track : William Richard Green - Week 2

William Richard Green

We are now into week 2 of our AW11 LFW Designer Tracking Series where we are following 14 designers in the run up to LFW. All last week we have been checking in with our chosen 14 going in studio and catching up with them. We continued this yesterday with Hermione de Paula and Kirsty Ward. Following on from our catch up with William last week, today we continue our conversation with him in studio.

So in our catch up with you last week you spoke about how Vikings are inspiring you for AW where did this stem from?

Well as you might know I also make music and me and my mate Joe started a club night called Vikings and I just kept researching them further online. In all my collections I use a take the piss over the top masculine character. Last season that it was fishermen and I wanted to continue this character.

Can you tell me more about this ‘character’ does he shape your designs?

I think it’s fun to design around a made up muse. I really like to have a character and not neceassrily design for him but design inspired by him.
There’s a model I’ve used who used to be the fit model at CSM and he’s quite muscley and has really long ginger hair and I’d definitely love to do a shoot with him when I’ve finished this collection as he’s kind of like a real Viking.

You mentioned that your character is overtly masculine, how do you explore/look at this element of maleness?

Well when I went to college the whole Dior thing was at its peak with Heidi Slimane and I was so tired of this androgenous weedy boy being how a man is supposed to look. I mean, I  quite like wearing my own clothes. I think in the 80’s there was a definite image of what a man looked like and I like that.

So which designers did you look to?

I was never into fashion until I did my foundation, At that time everyone was into McQueen and Westwood and then I found the Belgian designers (Antwerp 6). Walter van Berindonck is the coolest guy ever. His designs are fun and masculine, I mean he made rubber gimp suits! I also like early Raf Simmons.

So returning to your Viking man how is he affecting your shapes and patterns?

Looking at the Viking pattern cutting I discovered they basically wore skinny jeans even though they were warriors. I found that really interesting and I have actually made some garments using the same techniques which the Vikings used. I remained true to a lot of the pattern images which I shared with you on the blog last week, but tweaked them.

Images by Hayley Benoit.

Posted by Susan Walsh

Tags: LFW AW11 Designer Track William Richard Green