REAL NATURE
SPRING/SUMMER 22
DUNGENESS
Our Spring Summer campaign is a story with its roots in nature. Nature is where we find ourselves once again, it’s where we have all been drawn back to, in particular over the recent years. It’s a landscape we can explore freely, without restrictions and boundaries. For a breather, for time out, to reconnect. Nature is non-judgemental, restorative and beautiful. In a world where the means of production and industry are under greater scrutiny, we are looking to find new, more collaborative and community focused ways to not only survive but thrive into the new season. This Spring season we champion the local over the global. Garments that are built to be multifunctional but have a clear purpose, so will remain relevant and useful to the owner long after the usual best before date. As ever we are shunning the trend towards fast fashion and looking to our philosophy of Better is Greater Than More. As we venture into a new year and a changed landscape, we create fresh connections, nature, heritage, craft and community are the roots that renew us and prepare us for growth.
Our roots are intertwined in the vast shingle beach of Dungeness. This is where the acclaimed artist, film maker, poet, and celebrated gay rights campaigner Derek Jarman lived and worked until his death from an Aids related illness in 1994. Jarman’s distinctive, black-tarred fisherman’s shack and his “garden without boundaries” on the shingle expanse of Dungeness is a reminder that nature can grow from nothingness and in the most unlikely situations if it is nurtured and cared for.
So you can expect a weather washed, sun-faded colour palette, and floral print designed by our in house design team. Pieces that have dual functionality, durable utility cottons, natural knits and sustainable yarns. All weather outerwear with multiple useful pockets, trim details, and contrast collars.
Cotton blends, nautical stripes and an over the head smock, a range of vintage sportswear inspired tops and bottoms and shorts carrying our spring colours.
The juxtaposition of his simple cottage, his wild uninhibited garden with its driftwood totems and shaggy tufts of sea kale with the looming hulk of the power station behind give this place such a magical, other-worldly feel. It’s one of the strangest and most magical garden scenes in the world- added to this, back in the 90’s, by the sight of Jarman in a hooded djellaba or weather-beaten artists smock pottering about in the garden. Since his death Prospect Cottage and garden have become a site of pilgrimage for art students, architects and garden designers with the garden being maintained and kept to be as wild and wonderfully free as ever.
It’s on the edge of all of this that our spring/summer campaign found itself, a collection of pieces inspired by this idea of living with less, needing less but asking for more of the things we have. Asking for more time and better quality from the things we consume in order to live a more sustainable and ultimately a happier life. We look at the way Jarman dressed while working in the garden, well-worn work wear, nautical attire layered with unstructured tailoring.
"MY GARDEN’S BOUNDARIES ARE THE HORIZON."
Clothing inspired by the past, living in the present. As Jarman’s little garden has survived the harshest of surroundings and withstood the elements on the Kent coast for half a century, our collections are not only made to last but to grow more beautiful with age and to stand the test of time.
We are looking to nature and our brands future, questioning and challenging the ties of consumerism- to work with creativity and freedom.
As Jarman put it - “my garden’s boundaries are the horizon”, and the horizon is limitless.
