Literally making a splash at the Menswear Day during London Fashion Week this season, was rising designer William Richard Green’s darkly nautical installation in the sheds out back at Somerset House.  Following the industrial wasteland punks of his Fall collection, SS11 saw Green diving for inspiration in the murky depths of the ocean. “Last year I really got into watching 'The Deadliest Catch', this reality show about Alaskan fishermen,” shares Green of the offbeat muse for Spring, “It’s completely wild, all the fishermen look like they are Hell’s Angels. I really love the aesthetic that goes with the harsh weather conditions where you have to be really tough as does your clothing.”

Green plays with the references lightly in a way that’s cool not gimmicky – combining d-rings with leather to create the impression of fish scales on leggings and shorts or dyeing fabrics with squid ink to produce a beautifully mottled and aged effect on jersey. Traditional heavy duty waxed cotton and neoprene are reconfigured onto modern silhouettes and he reprises his use of rubber, (his fetish-inspired rubber shirt was a hit last season) this time around utilizing it for a striking yellow vest and a translucent smoke-coloured jacket.  In a short space of 3 seasons, Green is already building up a distinctive signature for a quirky, punky take on masculinity served up with a dose of black British wit. Summing up the emotions behind the collection, Green surmises, “I guess it’s a fusion of sorrow and humor!”

Likewise the film for the collection, as directed by the award-winning filmmaker, Zaiba Jabbar (which follows their techno-inspired collaboration for Fall which won the A Shaded View On Fashion Film Award earlier this year)  has a similarly mournful, deep sea aesthetic, with Jabbar cutting up and sampling images of sea anemones and octopuses  and juxtaposing it with the collection. Says Jabbar, “The film exposed a quality of the clothing which was about a wound being scratched and probed, "the razor against a belly."  It’s all about those underlying whirlwinds of energy that roar within.”

Photography Leon Mark
Styling Matthew Josephs
Film Zaiba Jabbar