Christopher Nemen (Fashion and Textiles)

"Nemeth’s early clothes were all hand-sewn, made from salvaged materials including old fabrics, rope, charity shop suits, his painted canvases, and – most famously – discarded linen mailbags collected from the gutters and pavements of London, which he initially intended to use as canvas to paint on. Disassembling existing clothes and restructuring these with the reused materials, Nemeth made the deconstruction aesthetic his own, a style later reproduced and made famous by the world-renowned Antwerp school of fashion in the following decade. By integrating his paintings into the garments he and others would wear, this was also a means in which many could get to see his artwork. Starting off by making and selling clothes to friends, he eventually put these in a stall in the now defunct Kensington Market, which from the 1960s through to the end of the 1990s had catered to various London subcultures."

"Sector became his eponymous shop in 1993, and during this decade would also open stores in Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya. Although as his business grew and use of found objects and materials in his clothing diminished, he would continue to use fabric remnants from old tailors which would have otherwise been discarded. Joining these leftover oddments together to make them capable for use in factory production, this would simultaneously create new, unique pieces of cloth, and consequently one-off garments. These limited, original designs of handmade individuality, since his earliest pieces, have made them status items with a cult reputation and following. His work is admired by generations of devoted fans and by some of the most celebrated designers around, including Martin Margiela from the days of the HOBAC, to Kawakubo Rei who since 2009 has stocked a Christopher Nemeth concession line at Dover Street Market, London."

"Across the years he quietly developed his aesthetic without losing momentum or needing to compromise, transcending seasons and trends, forming one continuous work in progress. He detested the conceptualisation of creative practice, placing the importance on the exploratory joy of making, understanding his work to be an instinctive and dexterous pursuit. Nemeth’s pieces tell a story, from the rips and holes in his early postbag suits, to the visual acknowledgment of the method in which a garment was constructed through replacing traditional tailor’s chalk with permanent marker. Emphasizing process over the final product, this idea is also expressed in his drawings and paintings of fabric and the action of sewing that decorate his store. Moulding and shaping patterns around his own body, so much of himself is stitched into each garment that Nemeth would refer to these as self-portraits. The dramatic and perspicacious surgery of traditional pattern cutting gives rise to his unexpected yet timeless, esoteric silhouettes of equivocal gender. A venerable fashion pioneer who compellingly bridged the much-trumpeted gap between fashion and art, Christopher Nemeth’s designs: idiosyncratic and unto themselves, continue to write their own stories through their habit of progressively taking on the shape of its wearer: from the romantically arcadian to the megalopolis citizen alike."

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127204043/http://www.primitivelondon.co.uk/christopher-nemeth/

MY OPINION:

Despite the nature of the fashion industry, Nemeth seems to have broken free of the trend cycle forming his own unique aesthetic. This perhaps is due to his focus on the process of creating and his use of found and repurposed materials to create works of art as opposed to manufactured products designed to sell.

I particularly enjoy his use of prints on his clothes. His use of black print on plain canvas allows him to create designs that while visually engaging and complex, possess a simple and unified overall feel. This is aided by the fact his prints are often not just additive elements to the piece but actually serve to give the illusion that the canvas had a more interesting texture than it actually does.

I have often shied away from using print in my work, opting to focus on silhouette and texture, however, Nemeth’s way of using print may be a good inroad for me to further explore this area of design.

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