Charles Jeffrey Loverboy (Q2732)
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Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Charles Jeffrey Loverboy |
Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Though the times be tough, Charles Jeffrey and his Loverboy people put on a big, noisy, all-singing, all-dancing takeover in the courtyard of Somerset House for his 10th anniversary. Beth Ditto was doing the singing—belting out Patti Smith’s “Gloria” with back-up, from a balcony, by the Somerset House choir—while Jeffrey’s madcap band of friends skipped, whirled, and chucked rose petals. “Ultimately, we’re about creating joy, I think,” Jeffrey had said earlier.Madcap, literally: everything from animal-eared beanies to giant baker-boy caps, balaclavas and bicornes, Peter Pan nightcaps, and paper hats rendered in felt. Then, to top it off, a Tower of London crenelated castle, a big shredded bin-bag busby, and Erin O’Connor wearing a horned head-dress in the shape of a computer game character. “I find animism and queerness are very interlinked,” Jeffrey remarked.Oversized beanies have turned out to be his breakout cult item—you see teenagers slouching at bus-stops in them all over London. That’s some kind of accolade, considering these little neo-grungers were just starting nursery when Jeffrey was beginning to design years ago. “I want to kind of remind people to dream, and go back into that kind of alternative reality,” he said.Props to him: at the beginning, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy’s rambunctious performances pioneered gender fluidity in fashion internationally; just the sort of thing that burnishes London’s reputation for producing outrageous, exuberant politically-pointed youth cultures. Matty Bovan was in the same class; it was a moment. “It was just at the beginning of public conversations around gender,” Jeffrey reflected.The new show was a Charles Jeffrey Loverboy comeback of sorts; since gaining minority investment from the Italian Tomorrow group, Jeffrey’s been taking his shebang to Milan for the last few seasons. On the other hand, Somerset House, an arts institution, has been home to his studio since 2016, and tonight also inaugurated the opening of “The Lore of Loverboy,” a retrospective exhibition in its Terrace Gallery telling the story of the brand that grew from the queer club night Jeffrey convened at Vogue Fabrics in Dalston, inciting DIY dressing-up mayhem to fund his MA at Central Saint Martins.Alex Kessler, now anSsenseeditor, who was part of the Loverboy fashion student creative gang, remembers, “it was pretty wild, but it was also very friendly. And there was a real sense of community.
In hindsight I feel like I was definitely part of a cultural shift, but at the time I was having fun.”The show was a fillip to London’s spirits as a fashion capital. As a celebration of “temporality” as Jeffrey put it, there was a gift of a stopped wristwatch on every seat. Digging into and subverting history is always one of his tacks: “I wanted to render these kinds of icons of Britishness, but in queer, soft, playful things.” There were boxer shorts with medieval scalloped edges, a sweater emblazoned with a male classical nude sculpture (a memory of London’s Roman occupation, he said), and 18th century frogging across knits, which he described as “soft soldiers. Sort of playing with power structures.”Jeffrey ran out to take his bow wearing a faux-torn navy tailored suit. It was look 1 from his fall 2018 show; or something very similar. Tattered, yet triumphantly resilient, his look struck a chord. Charles Jeffrey’s Loverboy has managed to survive Brexit and the pandemic to become a brand that sells beanies, nutty accessories, and fun knitting. He’s still only 33, and, to his credit, there’s a whole new generation spending their pocket money to join his club.
8 June 2024
Charles Jeffrey and his Loverboy friends pitched up in Paris during the menswear season. Like his London compatriot Martine Rose, he held a screening of the film he’d made to launch his collection. “The Curious Case of Moshkirk and Booness” is an intentionally ridiculous teen-centric romp, a dystopian fantasy scenario about a small town in Scotland that has been stuck in 1979 since a meteor strike. Suffice to say (it can be watched on the Charles Jeffrey Loverboy Youtube channel), it’s a cartoony pastiche of post-punk/New Wave style, which devolves into a wild town hall dance. Fronting the local band, Jeffrey himself can be made out, singing a self-penned number and flipping his wig while dancing in a red batwing suit printed with eyes.Jeffrey’s brand is a multi-channel, interdisciplinary entity dedicated to keeping up the spirits of young queer people, a fashion club that promotes being as creative, individualistic, and defiantly funny as you like. As the accompanying lookbook shows, this may include the chance to jump into a pair of banana-peel boots, a banana-print suit with a banana on each shoulder, or perhaps just the beanie version.It will take a wee while to explain the symbolism here, but it’s Jeffrey’s tribute to Billy Connolly, the late, outrageous Scottish comedian who wore such footwear on his Big Banana Boots tour in the mid-1970s. Jeffrey then discovered that the boots had been made by the late polymath theater director and designer John Byrne, who was Tilda Swinton’s partner.Long story short, there was a gathering of Scottish creative aristocracy around the making of Jeffrey’s movie. Swinton let them shoot on her estate, and the Scottish actor Alan Cumming voiced the narrative. Being larger-than-life and twice as fun is Charles Jeffrey’s superpower. He attracts people to want to be a part of it, and makes that possible by making his collections accessible, distinctive, and highly readable in public and on social media.Every season, there’ll be a new iteration of his CJL tartan (it was a punky red checked kilted combo, this time) and knits apparently cobbled together from Jeffrey’s own artwork. It’s surely the accessories which will get kids going though—the hilarious assortment of frog and monster beanies, the wellington boots with animal toes. These really are the trophies you’ll see 16-year-olds wearing in school bus queues all over, Scotland to Seoul and everywhere between.
25 January 2024
England has been ruled over by kings and queens since the 7th century or so. More recently Scotland, Wales and then by 1919 almost a quarter of the globe was under their dominion, too. Last September, as Charles Jeffrey Loverboy was preparing this collection, a slimmed-down monarchical system was burying Elizabeth II and preparing to crown Charles III. Which made the other Charles, fashion Charles, think.Back between 1649 and 1660, England was not a monarchy. Way before the French really made republicanism cool in 1789, the Roundheads won the English Civil War, ousted the king (also called Charles) and for a brief sliver of time the country was ruled by Parliament and Oliver Cromwell. Then Cromwell died, and Charles II was later restored to the throne. And so it goes on.For this collection Loverboy decided to imagine a Restoration writ in fashion in which society was shaped as he’d like to see it; equitable and fabulous. He mixed this thought with an emphasis on sportswear (as he’s been training to run a marathon, and CJL's sportier pieces have been selling well) and then collided history with hyper-modernity by using AI tools to research and (in the case of the floral) even design elements of the collection.The result was an entertainingly bawdy and thought provoking piece of fashion theater whose props contained several pieces you could see delivering bravura performances at retail. A line of sequin coated denim named Liquid Ecstasy mixed hyper-stylized armor with camp core pieces. A technical skort blended with wraparound kilt in fluoro green looked like a future raver’s bang-on favorite. Tricorn hats were inset with AI-generated theatrical mise-en-scenes denoting scenes of pure fantasy: an effective, well-funded British health service and an efficient and humanitarian policy towards asylum-seekers.Other compelling touches came via some Muppet-fuzzy pieces in teal fil coupe shirting, animist roaring-cat belt buckles (to go with the clawed clogs and shoes), pagan-ish block print denim, and some high britches/puff-shorts in that emergency green. The closing extreme court dress pieces created in conjunction with Wedgwood made for a rousing finale.There was so much humor, personality, politics and queerness embedded into this collection that Jeffrey's breezy lack of concern that his dabblings in AI might transform him from Loverboy to Loverbot seemed entirely justified. He kilt it.
18 June 2023
Although Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is a year away from celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Scottish designer has just unveiled his first pre-collection. This indicates that business is thriving. And Jeffrey’s distinct aesthetic—in addition to his ambitious multimedia collaborations spanning across creative communities—is testament to the success of his independent label, which received investment from Italian incubator Tomorrow Ltd last year. “It feels like a natural business decision for us to have pre-collections—we’re selling to four different markets now,” the designer stated in a preview.King Charles III’s recent coronation and all of its centuries-old traditions served as initial inspiration for Jeffrey’s pre-spring collection, entitled “Statant, Passant, Rampant.” With his trademark anarchic, queer culture-fueled Loverboy twists, the designer reinterpreted medieval iconography into wearable gender-neutral separates. While not far off from the brand’s usual off-center approach to cut and silhouette, there’s a focus on key pieces that they’re renowned for. “The people that buy from us know what we have to offer,” asserted Jeffrey. “It’s about firming up our core products—like the tartan suits, knitwear, and ‘lols’ shoes and accessories—and pushing the merchandising forward in a way that feels organic.”For instance, heraldic-inspired illustrations of unicorns, lions, and gargoyle faces—in Jeffrey’s immediately recognizable doodle style–are printed and embroidered onto tailored shirts, knitted sweaters, and A-line midi skirts. There’s also a range of technical sportswear pieces, adorned with cheeky motifs, which could be comfortably worn running or cycling. “We wanted to marry the worlds of new romanticism with the functionality of sportswear—an area we’ve explored in our last spring collection,” said Jeffrey.The Loverboy tartan is cut into sharp, skinny suiting, mini kilt dresses, and skater shorts. However, to push Jeffrey’s signature fabric forward, the designer has developed a tartan denim. Standout moments with the new fabrication include baggy jeans—which will certainly sell out in an instant—oversized biker jackets, and swinging ruffle mini skirts. “The effect is achieved through a specific enzyme washing technique, which is a sustainable practice,” said Jeffrey. “The technique disintegrates the color pigment of the fabric, without using extreme amounts of water or toxic chemicals.
”Jeffrey’s spring 2024 show is only just a few weeks away—what can we expect from the imminent spectacle at Milan Fashion Week Men’s? “This pre-collection is a precursor for what’s to come,” he shared. “Without giving too much away, the next collection is going to be democratic, counter-cultural, and lycanthropic.”
19 May 2023
Benvenuti a Milano, Carlo! The latest exile from London’s denuded menswear runway landscape touched down in Milan’s Navigli with an audience-galvanizing bang tonight. Charles Jeffrey has taken investment from locally based fashion incubator Tomorrow but said that he could just as easily have shown in Paris with that cash, or even stayed in London. However he added that the Northern soul, tram-tracks, and can-do spirit of this dirty old town—not to mention its nightlife—reminded him of Glasgow and inspired him to give it a whirl. “This feels like the perfect city.”The audience, including unofficial mentor Francessco Risso, rose and howled approval at the end of a highly-characterized, deeply thought through, and fundamentally subversive exploration of identity through costume. Inspired by artist and playwright John Byrne’s 1987 workThe Slab Boys Trilogy, Jeffrey had fashioned a Dantean class system of characters represented through clothing.The first groups were the “workers,” carrying paraffin lamps, bearing garments stamped with potato sacks and declaring flag-borne standards that echoed Byrne’s paintings. The second were the posers, who wore emphasized suiting in politically patterned textiles, powerfully subversed tartans, and knitwear embedded with stones and sundries Jeffrey had sourced while mudlarking on London’s river Thames. The third section was unflatteringly termed The Snakes and its members disseminated news, a characteristic that was not something to celebrate but which shouted in balderdash headlines from standout, splashy looks. Witty and lightly worn subversion marinated every look. The Loverboy has found his town.
15 January 2023
Since his independent debut in 2017, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy has put on a slew of joy-inducing spectacles honoring London’s queer community, creative liberation, and hedonistic club culture. However, as the business matures—and with the help of investors Tomorrow Ltd—so does the Scottish designer’s approach to clothes-making.For spring, Jeffrey explored the notion of queer wellness. “It’s the opposite of what we’re known for, but it’s important to have conversations about safe spaces within the queer community that doesn’t just involve nightclubs,” he said. “I’ve had my crazy, roaring 20s and now I want to exercise, sleep well, and feel healthy—it’s a different kind of awareness of the body that’s worth appreciating.”Despite distinguishable trademarks throughout, there’s a softness to the garments that feels new, exquisite even, whether it’s in the lightweight knits and checks; billowing silhouettes on military cuts and frocks; or the predominantly pastel color palette. Jeffrey's growth has also included an emphasis on women’s pieces, which he attributes to his womenswear designer, Ru-yenn Kwok. He makes sure to note other key names, as well: Daniel Rozsahegyi for menswear, Christopher Goodman for fabric development, and artist-in-residence Shaye Gregan for the airbrushed prints.Collaboration is at the heart of Charles Jeffrey Loverboy. Because the designer chose to present the project in the form of a music video, a number of talented artists are involved, including dance-pop duo Nimmo (whose song “Company” is featured), director Bunny Kinney, set designer Jack Davey, movement director Kate Coyne, and stylist Matthew Josephs, to name a few. “It’s been incredible to apply my creative direction to a whole other avenue,” said Jeffrey. “It’s a new gaggle of people, along with a new process, but it’s still a play on the traditional fashion show.”Once again, Jeffrey swerved, showing on the official schedule and as a now established household name, he can certainly get away with it. But there’s no denying that the high-spirited, creative presence of Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is sorely missed at London Fashion Week.
21 June 2022
In the dilapidated Georgian grandeur of a disused wing of Somerset House, Charles Jeffrey was orchestrating a lot of multimedia noise over the weekend. In one corner was a set with vivid splashy paintings and recording equipment faked up from cardboard, made by Rory Mullen. In another, a balaclava’d Talia Beale, a fashion-communications student from Central Saint Martins, was being filmed rapping self-authored poetry as models cavorted in giant spiky boots. In a room down the corridor, music blared from another video being made behind blackout curtains.It might almost have been a throwback to the alternative-artist squat occupations that took over derelict buildings in London and New York in the 1970s and 1980s. No coincidence that, because Jeffrey’s organized chaos was loosely based on the spontaneous amateurism of the New York No Wave band scene of the late ’70s. Plus there’s his current identification with Arthur Russell, the American experimental artist-cellist who passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1992.Big difference: This wasn’t a one-off physical fashion show but a methodical simultaneous recording of the digital material that will serve, 2022 style, to provide long-drawn-out omni-channel assets for the Charles Jeffrey Loverboy fall collection up until its retail and online arrival in June. It also manifests in a zine, namedNoise, that profiles his design team and collaborators and the TBC release of a vinyl-record souvenir, dropping in sync with the collection, that features his friend Tom Furse of the Horrors and video and spoken-word artist Robert Fox.Jeffrey said his decision to shift from real-time runway performance came about in the aftermath of his last London show in September—part of the whole industry questioning the value of one-off events staged for professionals in the face of the commercial drive to grab the attention of Gen Z global customers who continually consume and relate to brand community values minute by minute. “I was like: That was so much to do—and I can’t do that every six months,” said Jeffrey. “It just takes so much out of me, and I want to focus on building the business out a bit more—on product development and on making Loverboy a good place to work.”An equal part of the growing up of Charles Jeffrey and his Loverboy brand is the fact that he has recently joined the burgeoning stable of young designers who’ve signed up to the Italian sales and distribution outfit Tomorrow.
While maintaining the impression of splashy, fun, freewheelingly inclusive DIY creativity through his communication, the forward motion is now equally about drilling down into Loverboy items to buy. His Scottish Loverboy tartans this season have turned up bristling with 3D goosebumps and peaks—a materialized reference to the sensation of listening to music. There’s a reiteration of his signature best-selling Ears beanies. His reputation for vivid hand painting turns up all over—in printed denim and cartoony Loverboy beer-can illustrations by Mullen—and is translated into knitted socks.So London Fashion Week, starting tomorrow, begins with both Charles Jeffrey Loverboy and all his jollity—and, in a way, without him.
16 February 2022
After two seasons, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is back to showing IRL. Although his venue was East London nightclub Electrowerkz, this wasn’t just a celebration of club kid culture. He saw it more as a ritualistic opening of a portal (naturally, the show was called Portal). His show even fell on the same day as a full moon, as well as within the pagan Mabon festival, which celebrates the fall equinox. “Totally weird, but it all started to make sense,” he said. “The universe was sending me signals to press ahead with the show.”Set the scene: shamans in sculptural, hand-painted costumes chant as the crowd squeezes into a dark club space decorated with nothing but red laser beams to distinguish a runway. Cue a macabre performance by three dancers that ushers in a blaze of models stomping to heavy electronic sounds. Oh, and then a surprise appearance in the audience from the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and his family.The clothes themselves had instantly recognizable Loverboy signatures, split across three sections. First, a gothic celebration of teen angst via ruffle-collared coats with black lace tights or a 17th century doublet in puffer format. Then color block moments, a notion continuously explored by the designer, with an iridescent update to the Loverboy tartan and a “Lou Reed-inspired” two-piece suit made out of apple leather. Lastly, a chaotic, psychedelic section with sheer and disheveled pieces that felt appropriate for Burning Man. The cast represented a diverse mixture of brilliant queer, trans and non-binary characters, most of whom are Jeffrey’s friends. There were new items from the recent collaboration with Fred Perry, as well as boots from Dr. Martens, who sponsored the footwear, smothered in candle wax.After six years of firmly establishing himself as London’s enfant terrible, Jeffrey received an investment from Tomorrow Ltd. earlier in the year, taking his business to greater heights. The backing means that the Scottish designer now has the capacity to give more to his small, dedicated team, as well as the London creative community which he’s been an integral part of. Hence the prelude to his show gave space to young designer Bradley Sharpe to present his inaugural standalone show, a gesture that felt true to Jeffrey’s ethos. “Fortunately, I’m now in a place where I can help others,” he said. “It feels full circle, because I was once in a similar position.
”Although the business might have newfound financial stability, an anarchic essence and community-driven DNA will remain the core of Charles Jeffrey Loverboy.
25 September 2021
June 21 is surely the most longed-for date among British youth this year: It’s the day that clubs are (supposedly) slated to be allowed to reopen in the U.K. In the interminably frustrating meantime, Charles Jeffrey, whose Loverboy enterprise was always as much about expressing the mood of his community as designing for it, admits to having leaned into “feeling a bit shit.” He’s called his collection Gloom.“It was this whole idea of feeling very kind of introspective, I think. That’s where I sort of wanted it to start. Kind of looking into oneself,” he said. “Just kind of really embracing that negative side of things and at least letting it be some sort of vehicle for creation.”All the downtime contemplation led to him to make glitchy collaged videos for his Instagram feed—and something that looked like a doubling down on getting across Charles Jeffrey Loverboy’s brand offering. “I’ve realized we’re almost like a textile-focused brand. We do all customized fabrics.” Art-based inspirations run through it: Dr. Seuss’s darker drawings, geometrics taken from Louise Bourgeois’s dodecahedrons, splashy painterly prints from Jeffrey’s own brush. And, of course, a couple of seasonal reiterations of the Charles Jeffrey Loverboy tartan looks.In the end, the 34 looks don’t really read as a descent into dystopian despair. Apart from the arty patterns, there are mauve suits, color-blocked jackets, printed leggings, and a “prom dress” finale. By the time these clothes are delivered in the fall, fingers crossed and everything, there should be a place and a time for Jeffrey’s fans to congregate while wearing these things. In the package he sent to reviewers, Jeffrey included a roll of flyers: Come October, he has a couple of Loverboy club nights at Vogue Fabrics in London in the works. Post-gloom, he’s holding out hope.
29 March 2021
Charles Jeffrey’s Loverboy collection—of clothes and of friends—is a kind of frieze of young fashion’s crazy-joyful fight against fear. Here they are, the expansive Loverboy family, captured in 64 pictures by Tim Walker, a work that’s also printed in a 16-foot long concertina souvenir of the times. “I wanted it to be a physical representation of a stream of consciousness,” says Jeffrey. “It kind of represents my brain as I was thinking on long walks to the studio during lockdown. Taking up space, that’s what we do in a Loverboy show. But now that has gone, stopped. I was thinking: What does it look like when we’re all keeping away from each other?”It ended up as the Healing, a wild celebration of sexiness, inclusion, and craft-y life-forces, with Jeffrey acting as an invoker-provoker of good against evil. “Loverboy was always a community that came together in a club, but also a digital community of friends who’ve gravitated towards us. There are a lot of really amazing people in here,” he says, describing them in his press communiqué as “our queer family captured in defiant joy.” “It was originally nicknamed the Emergency Collection in the studio,” he remembers. “Then, everyone had to go home, except me. There was this panic.” On his solitary 10-mile daily walks, the Scottish folk tradition enacted by the Burryman—“costumes that ward off evil”—suddenly popped into Jeffrey’s head. That got his creative synapses jumping. “Our interns, god bless them, had started with us bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and excited about working on the collection. I didn’t want to take that experience away from them, so we set a craft project they could work on remotely.”Community, Health, and Hope are the emblems in the Loverboy panels of protective armor, embroidered by interns in isolation. The contradictions between enforced separation and the need to feel united simultaneously sent Jeffrey down a rabbit-warren of research into “warning signs in nature.” Out of the search engine popped the vivid clashing colors and patterns in the collection, inspired by poison dart frogs, blue-ringed octopi, puss moth caterpillars, hickory tussock moths, and marbled cone snails. “Well, poisonous markings in nature are also very bright and attractive. That weird interplay felt really instinctive to me as a person who works with color. How it can ward people off, but also brings them together.
”The pathway from there to healing went via chromotherapy—but practically, it’s just there quite obviously and visually in all the eye-dancing Loverboy energy radiating from multicolored knits, tartans, and psychedelic prints. There may be no physical spaces for the rituals of clubbing or fashion performances right now—sad for the moment—but never mind. Despite the troubled times, there still exist the territorial rights to identity and psychic freedom that the Loverboy generation has mapped out—the progress, as Jeffrey puts it, “from emergency, terror, and jittering-anguish to elation, sex, communion.”
21 October 2020
“It was a modern-day Scottish sacrifice,” said Charles Jeffrey at the beginning of his show debrief. There was an installation of a hollowed-out tree hung with CDs and topped by a disco ball silhouetted against the dark on a platform at the end of his runway—a place for the ritual propitiation of the ancient, abused forces of nature. So it seemed, as his characters came and went, some dressed in costumes hung with horse brasses and sporting huge equine quiffs, others in Loverboy tartans, and still more in pannier dresses. Another sect looked like a cult of eco-paganists clinging together in their own dance of lament.Let’s leave the narratives aside for a minute. What you see in these show pictures, shorn of surrounding context, is a clear view of his most accomplished, extensive setting out of his stall as a designer yet. Jeffrey has traversed that stage of his career where he’s presented generalized symbolic statements and reached a point where his tailoring fits impressively and sexily, starting with a teal all-in-one trompe l’oeil suit. His waisted, puff-shouldered jackets, flared asymmetric suits, and tartan trousers have magnetic swagger, and he’s gathered in a put-together softness in flower-sprigged prints. Good dresses. Great coats. Fun, bright Loverboy-fanboy sweaters and jersey polos.There was a two-sided press release with this show. On one, a swirling, free-associative Scottish reel through folk tradition, art inspirations, and reimagined Glaswegian youth culture, undercut with intergenerational anger: “An older, hidden generation have made brutal calculations, and we’ve inherited their catastrophe.” On the other was his densely printed “Manifesto For Conscious Practice,” which contained the most salient takeaway. “We are working every day to improve our processes and working practices to ensure that we mindfully and with accountability respect our environment as much as we respect the people on whom the brand relies,” it began. “As part of this drive we are continuing to place equal value on human wellbeing alongside financial growth.”Performing and costuming a fashion show confrontation with dystopian ecological disaster is one thing—many fashion shows have an undertow of this today. It’s another matter to actually do something concrete about it. Jeffrey is making that effort. Having gathered his team to study the weekly online sustainability course offered by the London College of Fashion, he is establishing better practices.
5 January 2020
London looks to Charles Jeffrey Loverboy as an orchestrator and impresario of the feelings of his generation. When he pulls off his spectacular immersive shows, like last season’s frenetic Weimar Republic club performance, it builds huge anticipation for his next act. Well, this time the Loverboy reading of collective confusion of the moment was literally to retreat to a place of reading and wisdom—the British Library—and present a show that thought about the fractured consciousness of “overburdened hearts and minds.” Or, really, the struggle to stay sane in a world that has gone mad.“The library is a great equalizer; anyone can come here and be armed with knowledge,” he said later. He led the show himself, reading from a passage by Dylan Thomas as he walked a runway installed around the library’s atrium. Two further readings came later, first by the young London poet Wilson Oryema, with the last word being given to Helene Selam Kleih, the activist and consciousness-raiser who writes poignantly and powerfully on the hidden issues around male mental health.The collection referenced another time when young people’s culture reflected a general societal breakdown—’70s punk and its pop-culture early-’80s aftermath. With incredible face-painting by Lucy Bridge and headwear by John Vial, the retro echoes were taken to a new level of expression. Yet somehow, this show about emotional wreckage never tipped into any sense of dystopian despair. Jeffrey’s colorful, spontaneous hand-painted prints—literally his own signature—attest to the fact that, for all the stress and strain, he’s an optimist at heart.This show also said that he is a focused businessperson, and he wants the world to see it. Jeffrey has put a lot of work into defining his brand, and he used the format of a regular runway show to spell out the offering: cheerful knitwear, continuations of Loverboy tartans, accessible jersey separates in scribbly patterns, commercial heart-print blouses. In a time of “uncertainty“ writ large across this Brexit-riven society, it’s reassuring to see someone keeping his head about where he’s going.
9 June 2019
Outside in the freezing cold there was a man with slicked-back hair intently playing an out of tune piano, while crackling braziers lit the audience’s way into a dilapidated power station. With his upswept black eye makeup and moth-riddled camel overcoat, he looked not unlike the impresario of Loverboy, Charles Jeffrey himself. That was the welcome to the cabaret the designer was about to lay on inside—a piece of theater with rackety, be-feathered, ball-gowned, and tartan-suited characters sprung from Berlin nightclubs in the ’20s, and Peter Pan.There were crashed chandeliers, an Edwardian bathtub filled with torn-out book pages, a stack of old mattresses, a festooned dressing table like something out of Sally Bowles’s bedroom. A fully clothed couple of naifs jumped into the bath and started play-fighting with the pages. Someone in a red-orange crinolined, raw-edged dress swept by in a hat made from a twist of old beaded tapestry and a towering ostrich feather. A tattered flapper posed in a nude tulle embroidered dress, face masked by a wonky crystal waterfall. Childlike “Lost Boys” wandered past in tied-tight hoodies with teddy bear ears. Someone sported a tartan stuffed-toy fox as a stole.It was a place where Jeffrey somehow made decadence and innocence happily coexist in a fizzily sincere atmosphere of showing off. “I wanted to paint a picture of all the people I hold dear,” he declared. If anyone wants inspiration for what to wear to the Met Gala opening of the exhibition on camp, this collection couldn’t hold a better set of opportunities.For one thing, it showed a huge upgrade in Jeffrey’s ambition. He pulled off his first stab at couture elegance—with all the chic accessories—with a surprising aplomb. Asked about that, he noted that he’d interned at Christian Dior as a student—handy experience he’s kept up his sleeve until the right time. While doing that, his other drive was an improvement on his tailoring. The signature Loverboy tartan suits and a coatdress on a girl were fitted, spick-and-span. Embroidered, patch-worked, decorative coats, cloches, berets, colorful signature sweaters, and all—it was a fulfillment of all he’s achieved so far, and a big step on.But then there’s the subtext, too. The Weimar Republic cabaret imagery will cause those who know their history to rush ominously on to what happened next: the takeover of Nazism.
Charles Jeffrey spelled that right out in his show notes, positing Peter Pan’s instruction to the Lost Boys to “take care of everything that’s smaller than you.” His championing of the queer community—and the many friends who collaborated on and in this show—now has a very definite intent. “One thinks of policies being proposed in America against the trans community, or U.K. policies to further disadvantage the disabled,” he wrote. “An opposition to a rumbling sense of global unfairness lies beneath this show.” Charles Jeffrey got serious in all ways, this season.
5 January 2019
Charles Jeffrey, London’s pioneering Pied Piper of the creative, queer club scene, has taken up running—no news to his 66,000 Instagram followers. The new sobriety (a Gen Z movement elders are astonished at) encourages transcendent thinking—all those endorphins—but how to channel it? “Running’s been my newfound meditation. It’s made me align with my younger self, watching sci-fi and playing video games,” he said.As we walked in—well, herded in, because this is the most mobbed of the London men’s shows—we saw performers in gray-streaked bodysuits lying as if comatose, attached to tubes attached to silver-foil clouds. There was singing from a black-clad choir and a muffled artificial voice. The dancers gradually twitched to life. Awaking from long, dark days of hangovers into a new trans-human consciousness, maybe?Jeffrey’s budget-theatrical depictions on the themes of LGBTQ+ realities entwine wild escapism and expressions of pain. This time, he said he’d “been a lot more sensitive to trans people, who are very much on my periphery. It was about pain and protest, really.” Fantasies about the creative and scientific possibilities of body modification are rife in fashion—it’s an obsession of Alessandro Michele’s at Gucci, after all. Some of Jeffrey’s models had facial prosthetics, and others had bulbous protrusions—one of a bundle of socks—bursting from under their coats.But all of this explication about his references—there was a lot more going on here, besides—seems beside the point when you look at the runway pictures. Truth to tell, the clothes are now cleaving far more steadily to coherence, continuity, and brand identity. There’s the highly successful military frogging now transposed onto an athleisure jogging suit, as well as jackets and a pair of trousers. There are Loverboy-branded sweaters and rugby socks, easy buys for Jeffrey’s cult followers. There’s the house tartan patchwork tailoring and the kilts that are part of his Scottish-heritage narrative. A scribbled rose-print belted coat and matching trousers were a random delight. But best of all was a gray, collarless jacket, with decoration in the form of relief cut-outs. Well-designed, well-made, cool, and desirable, it deserves a designation as Charles Jeffrey’s Sober Suit.
11 June 2018
He’s the one who’s brought his young queer community together, channeled their collective creative energy into a London phenomenon, brought theater and performance back to fashion shows, and put smiles on even the most anxious and jaded of faces. For these powers, Charles Jeffrey was voted Emerging Menswear Designer of the Year at the 2017 British Fashion Awards last month. But is it sufficient for Jeffrey to box himself in as Britain’s fun fashion club kid entertainer, an ephemeral role at best? Absolutely not. He answered that unspoken query with a collection that went to dark and honest places: an “explosion of anger,” which revisited memories of his Scottish upbringing, and among all that furious energy, still elevated his show head and shoulders above what we’ve seen before.It’s awkward to speak only to the photographs you see with this review. Sheared of context, they look like stuff that kindles up the implacable desire to buy or to belong to this set, group, gang, whatever we want to call it. The opening navy tailored suit, artfully torn like a Schiaparelli throwback. The exaggeratedly padded red argyle sweater you know would deflate into something wearable. The tartan skirtsuit with a flared midi hemline and a matching tam-o’-shanter. All these do indeed prove, to those who’ve been on the fence about this spectacle-maker, that Jeffrey can put his design, technical skills, and tailoring where his mouth is.But where his mouth is? In the performance that preceded this regular-looking runway show, there was a primal-screaming confrontation with the experience of growing up gay. Performers, as in a dregs-of-the-night underground club, cried, howled, and stamped their feet in a repetitive psychotic round of behavior. Even though dressed in dingy, streaked, paint-dashed clothes, with faces smeared with chalky, peeling makeup—faces occasionally thrust into the crowd—they were less threatening than heartbreakingly vulnerable, wounded. Then a neo-rock drummer started up, the lights went on, and the official fashion show began—with the wounded nightclub kids blearily applauding the show for all they were worth.You felt like you’d been taken through something emotionally educational. Backstage, Jeffrey acknowledged the suggestion that there was painfully on display. “There’s growing pains, yes. It’s what you feel from being bullied when you’re young, for being gay.
I wanted to revisit those feelings—and that feeling I had on a Monday morning, ‘One day, I’ll show them!’ I wanted to make this show about an exploration of that anger, accepting it, rather than always being joyous and fancy-free.”Jeffrey quoted the influences of Claes Oldenburg’s happenings and the fierce and emotional pull of his Scottish heritage (Pictish patterns on knits, merging seamlessly with the attitudes of punk and graffiti art), but the real basis of the whole reckoning was a book.The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s Worldby the American clinical psychologist Alan Downs—required reading, as far as Charles Jeffrey sees it. Young as he is, there’s a sense of responsibility in this guy. Opening up like this in a personal way only makes his credibility as a leader and educator of dazzled young followers stronger. The more hard-bitten moneymakers of the fashion industry should take note.
7 January 2018
If one of the fundamental rights of civilized society is the freedom to dress up, have fun, and demonstrate exactly who you are, thenCharles Jeffreyis currently the upholder of all that is human, creative, and cheerful about British fashion. His first stand-alone show began—and continued—with a half-kindergarten, half-pantomime troupe of dancers of all sizes, making merry as they stomped around wearing pink-painted homemade cardboard shapes. The first impression was of watching some kind of all-pink rite of spring, then out came the celebratory mishmash of characters. They were dressed in checkered or striped trouser suits, baby doll dresses, Dior-like pannier skirts, Elizabethan doublets, bondage pants, or empire-line gowns. Anne of Cleves wimples, mobcaps, and top hats adorned the heads. Quite deliberately, it was a nonlinear, century-jumping affair. “The past is a country anyone can visit!” Jeffrey declared after a rapturous reception for the performance. “We decided to take that as our motto!”The ‘we’ and the ‘our’ is the collective point about the Loverboy phenomenon. Jeffrey is less a singular design genius—though his particular talent is painterly, spontaneous illustration—than a ringmaster and pied piper of many who have formed a movement sprung straight out of the British art school tradition. Working from a subsidized studio in Somerset House, Jeffrey orchestrates the performance director Theo Adams and 3-D costume designers Gary Card and Jack Appleyard, calls on former Central Saint Martins classmateRichard Quinnfor prints and the expert seamstress Sybil Rouge for tailoring.Yes, older eyes can see where it’s all kindled. This volcanic eruption of escapist LGBTQ creativity consciously follows in the footsteps first trodden byVivienne WestwoodandJohn Gallianoand all the London club kids in the ’80s, from Leigh Bowery and Taboo to the New Romantics and Kinky Gerlinky, right through to Boombox in the early aughts. The difference now is that the political backdrop has changed so much. The hedonism acted out here was not so much the usual outlet of fashion students dressing up and showing off as a brave standing-up for openness and self-expression in a world where all kinds of rights are daily under attack. As a line in the press release put it, “As reality becomes more unrecognisable, an absurd satire of itself, the romantic fantasies of our imagination become more real than ever.
”Still, what was most remarkable here was the sense of transformative joy rather than anger that Charles Jeffrey and company communicate together. Choosing to be cheerful is in itself an act of defiance against the forces of darkness, and that feeling ran right through the audience. Beyond the spectacle, too, there’s another sense of seriousness: These clothes aren’t just costumes, but increasingly well-made and ‘real.’ In a crazy election week in Britain, this seemed like another sign of a new generation stepping up to stake their claim to be recognized.
10 June 2017