John Alexander Skelton may make wonderfully seductive clothing, but he is also a masterful storyteller. The images from his newest lookbook run an escapist yarn of a sultry summer in the province of Mayo of Ireland, where Visser drags their nets up or won to the sea, and walking to the senior to a nearby waterfall and wild flowers from the meadow, before gathering to drink a pint of Guinness in a local pub. Where Skelton is often fascinated by a certain tribe of Moody Victoriana, this time it seems that he leaves the light in a bit.
“That part of Ireland, there is a softness,” Skelton told me during a preview and noted that he has family roots in that corner of the Emerald Island and that the lookbook is a quiet nostalgic tribute to family holidays that he would take there in the 90s. “The mountains are not that big and everything is extremely green and green, and the people are very hospitable. I wanted the collection to have a softness and lightness.” Instead of planning the casting in advance, Skelton and photographer William Waterworth worked together with a local intermediary who helped them to explore on the way (they were looking for “a real series of people, farmers, fishermen, a few boys who had just retired and the result was a palpable feeling that was the dressed relationship.
That feeling of “softness and lightness” shone in some of the more playful details of the collection, such as a white linen with a light cinch in the waist with the opening of the jacket that blows over the waist, or a particularly beautiful dark green waxed jacket with a double row of buttons. And it was briefly visible in the somewhat earthy color story of off-whites and pink, the most lively expressed in a series of looks cut from a DitZy floral print. Everyone who has seen Skelton himself knows that he is a living embodiment of his brand, and he noticed the collection, is not deeper to think about the relationship between his own wardrobe and that of his customer. “I really wanted to make exactly exactly how I felt like wearing,” he said.
In particular, Skelton wanted to repeat his dedication to the off-catch formality that supports its design ethos, partly as an act of resistance to the slow but steady rise of casual wear in recent years. “There is just something that I really don’t like, and it means that I want to do the opposite and wear something that is really insanely formal – and not necessarily polished,” he said. “In fact, something that is completely the opposite is. And it seems a bit of a pretty strong reaction to people. But I enjoy it a bit.”
The collection – and the delicious lookbook that accompanies it – is proof of the type of fashion – alchemy that can only be done by going into the world and dealing with real people and allowing it back in clothing. “One thing that I don’t really like about my work is that I can’t travel much with it,” said Skelton with a smile. “Traveling for these shoots is a very nice way to go into the world, instead of always being in the studio.” That boundless curiosity is exactly what Skelton’s clothing gives their curious magic.