Now it may seem like I'm treading on unknown territory here, poking around the boyfriend's turf (meant in the least sexual way possible there...) and perhaps sticking my blogging nose where it does not belong.
But I'm writing about Casely-Hayford's S/S 10 Kings of the Kings Land on two quite important accounts; a) that it's a fooking good collection, REGARDLESS of whether it's a menswear or womenswear collection and Style Bubble readers aren't in my mind just into pretty bows and frilly tulle and b) it's nice to see that my love of Joe Casely-Hayford, the highly distinguished half of this father-son duo, nurtured back in the early noughties when I'd go DSUK sample saling comes full circle. This Joe Casely-Hayford shirt has served me well over the years, unbuttoned and otherwise...
It goes without saying that Joe Casely-Hayford is a British fashion legend, hence why my eyes would light up when I spied his name on the sample sale racks. He's errr.... of course gone on to bigger and better things that servicing my small-fry shopping needs. Together with his equally distinguished (not to mention TAAAALLLL) son, Charlie, Casely-Hayford was born for S/S 09.
Of course you'll know all of this, if you have read the musings of the other half on Style Salvage as they have waxed lyrical MANY times about Casely-Hayford. I'm seizing my moment though and after politely waiting until Steve put up the interview with Charlie Casely-Hayford, I can now declare my love for what I think is one of the 'freshest' collections. By the way, that's 'fresh' as in the slightly retro mid-80s hip-hop meaning. It's a sad affair that I'm breaking out with disused slang but one-word-collection-articulation is hard. I wonder how Sarah Mower does it.
In the Casely-Hayford interview on Style Salvage, they explain that their S/S 10 collection is inspired by Kingsland Road (area in East London... full of Vietnamese restos and general TREND-EYE-NESS), and from this, they've termed the phrase 'Afropunk', a word that along with 'fresh' has been ringing around since I saw their S/S 10 presentation at Fashion East's Menswear installations. This entire collection smacks of the sort of cultural appropriation that is scarily spot on. Casely-Hayford has been trying to articulate that meeting point from 'English Heritage to British Anarchy' and I think with this 'afropunk' collection they have done that splendidly. They saw a synergy between the spirit of London punks and that of traditional tribal wear and have very successfully fused them together, because all the injection of 'African' details have been doused in Casely-Hayford's traditional tailoring skills. I know I'm sounding excessively complimentary here but that's only because I'm attempting several different sentences, from which hopefully ONE will successfully convey what I'm trying to get at...
It may be my wary comments about 'cultural/ethnic' appropriation in the past that made my head whirl about this collection. That in being inspired by the raw energy of Kingsland Road, its immigrant connotations as well as its more recent 'trendiness' and combining those ideas with the physical outcome of traditional African elements richly poking out from the sturdy foundations of English tailoring...I can perhaps relate to those mixed sentiments with how I relate to my own culture.
And on that heavy-handed, Channel4-documentary note, it's past midnight and this is no longer the forum to be discussing ideas of cultural misplacement. Let's stick with FRESH shall we? Or let's discuss the idea of 'hanker-sleeves' as shown in the picture below...hankerchiefs knotted up the arm forming sleeves? Let's just forget that I ever even attempted to string an actual THOUGHT-provoking bit of prose about this collection?
