Blog posts

Medieval street names, two centuries of dictionary silence, and the women who took it back. On reclaimed language, and why this piece is knitted.

From Samhain and guising to the licensed plastic mask — on the difference between a costume and a wardrobe, and what to wear the other 364 days.

He was buried in the Dracula cape. Forty years later a band announced his death and made him permanent. The officially licensed Bauhaus capsule.

Fake fur was never a substitute, and pink was never sweet. On honest materials, from Schiaparelli’s shocking pink to Leigh Bowery’s Taboo.

The fashion season was invented in 1860s Paris as a sales mechanism. On Worth, cruise collections, July coats and why an archive piece is not a discount.

The Jesus and Mary Chain buried pop songs under feedback and turned the stage lights off. On damaged beauty, and why the best clothes do the same.

Victorian mourning, the Batcave, Paris 1981 and a nine-minute single from 1979 — how gothic style was assembled, and why the clothes outlived the genre.

The most copied garment in the history of counterculture is also the worst-cut for most of the people who want to wear it. That is a design problem, and it...

Glam built costumes, punk built confrontation, post-punk put on an overcoat. On the trench, the mac and the wardrobe that refused to perform.