Man Collections takes on London Fashion week 2015

It is 10 years since MAN first sent models down
the catwalk to showcase Britain’s emerging
menswear talent. John-Michael O’Sullivan
takes the long view of a show that’s launched
many of today’s top names. 

(The show took place from 13 to 15 of June 2015)
L ate one September evening 10 years ago,
the pavement outside Brick Lane’s
Truman Brewery filled with people
waiting for the last show of London Fashion
Week. Nothing unusual about that, in the city
whose fashion weeks have turned passive-
aggressive queueing into an art form. But this
was something different. The crowd was
waiting for MAN, LFW’s first dedicated
menswear event, a show that would
revolutionise British men’s fashion.
The event – which showcased the work of three
emerging designers on one catwalk – was the
brainchild of Lulu Kennedy, founder of Fashion
East, a non-profit support scheme set up in
2000 to nurture design talent. “The idea came
into my head while watching the Central Saint
Martins MA show that February,” she says. “I
thought: ‘Why is no one supporting this
incredible menswear talent in London?’ So I
approached Topman to be our partner, and by
September we were doing our first show.” For
Topman’s design and development director,
Gordon Richardson, it was a no-brainer: “We
agreed that we couldn’t let those designers
fade into anonymity.” Kennedy and Richardson were tapping into a
new sense of energy in London’s menswear.

Attempts had been made to promote menswear
before – from the British Fashion Guild’s
London Line in 1960, to a short-lived London
Men’s Fashion Week in the 90s – but the time,
at last, seemed right. Adventurous stores such
as Dover Street Market, bStore, Oki-Ni and the
Pineal Eye had opened doors for young
designers; the first generation of menswear
bloggers was emerging, eager to anoint their
own fashion heroes, and new style magazines
were appearing; GQ Style Magazine and
AnOther Man both launched the same
September as MAN.
“My PR, Mandi Lennard, told me that the
people who organised MAN were interested in
me doing it,” says Patrik Söderstam, one of the
designers who took part in that first show,
alongside Siv Støldal and Benjamin Kirchhoff.
“There really was no place to show menswear
in London,” remembers Støldal. “I was
completely blown away by the opportunity.”
The show – unplanned, uneven, unpredictable –
set the MAN template. Söderstam sent out
colourful polka-dot ruffles, supersized jackets
and paint-streaked jeans; Kirchhoff teamed
dishevelled knits and baggy tailoring with jelly
sandals, while Støldal, the most established of
the three, showed luxurious sportswear (and
inflatable shirts). “I was working with the
stylist Thom Murphy,” Støldal remembers, “and
he went round the East End hiring the models
from boxing gyms. Two of the best boys were
only 16, but were already wearing electronic
tags. They each had a policeman following
them to the studio fittings, hanging out
backstage. It was quite intense; I remember
one of them threatening to kill the hairdresser
if he fucked up his hair.”

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jun/14/fashion-the-ascent-of-man