Devon Halfnight Leflufy AW15

Initial reaction:

Skinny, pierced casanovas with shaved heads and slicked-back hair wear a psychedelic mash-up of cross-era clubwear, complete with 90s cyber flame symbols, racing stripes and corduroy tracksuits.

Nostalgia for the future:

Newly shortlisted for the 2015 LVMH prize, Antwerp-based designer Devon Halfnight Leflufy showed a collection heavily inspired by the 70s, rave culture and a healthy dose of “nostalgia for the future.” The collection, entitled ‘Truth Search’, took subcultural emblems and references from different eras completely out of context and reconnected them in an uncanny way. “I wanted to use powerful symbols like flames and skulls and text and put them all together in a way that they become meaningless,” Leflufy explained. “A tracksuit is a symbol, the double-breasted coat is a symbol… we’ve twisted it and made it our own.” 

A mirror-world wardrobe:

According to the designer, “it all ties back into the idea of making a mirror-world wardrobe.” ‘Mirror-world’ is an idea from William Gibson’s 2003 book Pattern Recognition – a coinage that explains the familiar nostalgia one feels for an object when faced with a foreign one created from a parallel development process. “If you’re from the States and you’re in London, coins look like coins but they don’t feel quite right. But it’s familiar – you know what it is and you know how to use it, but it’s not what it normally is. This is the idea not just for this collection, but a code of my brand to apply this to clothing.”