Autumn/Winter 2017

‘room service’

It started with skyscrapers. Those tall, reflective glass covered buildings, that house our busy capitalist world. That shiny dream. I looked at burlesque show girls from the 1950’s - their glittery costumes, bare legs and cleavage, dancing around, also selling. I was thinking about the mating game we all play and what we do to get attention, to be noticed, to be desired. I googled ‘Dubai escorts’, girls selling themselves with sexy pictures and all the crazy things they can do with their mouth. 100% real pics. We put those on the jeans. It's funny because the guys googling those girls just need a hot accessory for the club come Thursday night. The girls are trying to sell themselves as hot. The boys are selling themselves as desired. The city is selling opportunity. One of the first things we designed in the collection was the coat in ‘money green’.

The skyscrapers took the form of sequined long gowns, each sequin custom cut and dyed to our exact specs. As the collection narrative started to take shape we kept going deeper. The rich man with the pretty woman was just too obvious. So I googled things like ‘financial fetish’, more because I thought it sounded good and might be a good phrase for a t-shirt but I found myself in a really fun, relevant corner of the internet. I learnt about ‘fin-doms’, FinDom is a specific kind of fetish in which a ‘sub’ derives an erotic thrill from relinquishing control of their finances to a financial domme, which is where the practice derives its name. Findom isn't even about sex really, nor is it even about money, it's about relinquishing control. I love that our sweatshirts say ‘cash slave’ with a little panty icon, and everyone is going to think it’s girls prostituting themselves for money, when really ‘cash slaves’ are the men dying to be dominated - who are giving their money away just to feel submissive. Oh and the girl on the sweatshirt is Lebanese pop star Haifa Wahbe, the ultimate tease.