The designer and photographer tell AnOther about their collaborative project, which captures Green’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection
Since bursting onto the London fashion scene back in 2013, Craig Green has consistently pushed the boundaries of what menswear can be. Soulful and sculptural, his instantly recognisable designs often blur the lines between clothing and artwork, melding grand visual spectacle with beautifully constructed – yet decidedly wearable – pieces with a modern, utilitarian edge. Speaking to Alexander Fury for Another Man in 2019, Green described his approach, and specifically this balance of “spirituality” and “practicality”, as a wrestling with “the ideas of freedom and restriction, chaos and control.”
It’s no surprise then that Green has found a well-matched creative partner in the photographer and AnOther Magazine contributor Jack Davison, who Green first worked with back in 2017, and whose photographic practice similarly defies categorisation – traversing the worlds of fashion, documentary, and art, and covering subjects as disparate as dreamy magazine cover stories to encompassing portraits of endangered rhinos. “I don’t necessarily feel comfortable in any of the [photographic] realms,” Davison has previously told AnOther. “I’ve always said I want to keep people confused forever.”
Premiered exclusively on AnOthermag.com, Green and Davison’s latest project documents the designer’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection, styled by Robbie Spencer. “I have always loved Jack’s work, he has a natural ability to capture reality in the most beautiful way,” says Green of the poetic series of images, which sees the collection photographed in nature on a statuesque group of models as they fly kites, sway cinematically in the wind and hold powerful, sculpture-like poses. “Jack sees the possibilities in real life and translates these into images that have this incredible feeling of fantasy and escapism,” the designer adds.
“I’ve had the pleasure to work with Craig a few times now, and it’s always a special and creative experience,” says Davison. “His work has many interesting sculptural elements, and a lot of the brilliant CG imagery has been structured and still, so it was fun to play with movement and throwing the outfits out into the elements.”
Reflecting on the clothing itself, and these strange times, Green explains that though each of his collections is usually born from one abstract fantasy or another, for this outing he found inspiration in the urgency of the world of today: “Every collection usually starts with an element of escapism, or a feeling of fantasy,” he says. “While developing this collection we soon realised that the fantasy and escape at this moment was rooted in reality, it was real life that felt like the thing which was furthest out of reach.”
Photography: Jack Davison. Creative direction: Craig Green. Styling: Robbie Spencer. Casting: Samuel Ellis for DM Casting. Movement direction: James Wilton Dance. Hair: Mari Ohashi. Sculptures in collaboration with David Curtis-Ring. Production: Mini Title.