London Fashion Week Mens has taken over London, and one of our fave brands, Blood Brother are showcasing their new AW17 collection. So we thought it was about time we caught up with Nick and James , the guys behind the brand to talk all things fashion.
Who inspired you to get into fashion?
For me (nick) it wasn’t so much someone but everything going on around at the time I started to be interested in clothes, what clothing enabled you to do and the potential power of having a good outfit on or wearing a rare pair of trainers, the fashion subcultures made me want to know more. The lust for more background into brands and designers led to a change of heart while at university studying criminology and subsequently a place at LCF.
Before setting your label you worked with Jean Pierre Braganza, Diesel, CSM Design Lab and J. Lindeberg, how would you say this influenced your own brand?
Both James and Myself were lucky to have worked in varying different work places within the industry gathering an understanding of how different sized businesses operated, it gave us a large amount of encouragement that we were able to do it ourselves. I actually credit some of the larger companies we both worked within for starting our own brand due to the at times stifling atmosphere, while being with a large team benefitted us both often my freelance jobs were where I felt most at home and part of a digital remote community whereas working in more corporate environments often lead to a confusing balance as a young creative.
[URIS id=79985]Talk us through your design process.
Starting with the research process, I think its important to lose yourself somehow, research for me the most important part, hoarding information and trying not to look at too many clothes is vital. Once there is a rich train of thought its important to work quickly to get to the next stage, a swift extraction of all the raw information to be exchanged for a concise catalogued PDF to work from as a hard file.
Once we have the theme and story we create sketches from key shapes historic to Blood Brother and then work into our seasonal silhouettes during our design period and from there its about refining and developing each product carefully until we have a healthy balanced CAD selection.
Describe your typical day.
A typical day at Blood Brother is spent on a wide range of activities depending on which time of year it is, while seasons over lap we are always looking after production of one season while designing a new one, not to mention special projects, events and parties.
What have been your career highlights so far?
I think to be able to work as an independent brand which is self financed, is something to be very proud of during very unstable financial times. Plus I like the SS17 trench coat, it’s amazing!