It was on 10 April 2020 that Clare Waight Keller announced she was leaving Givenchy after serving the Maison for three years. Waight Keller was Givenchy's first-ever female creative director, and while that seemed to be the headlining achievement (partriachy, everybody), her time at the Maison was a creative breath of fresh air while paying homage to founder Hubert de Givenchy. Her designs—across womenswear, menswear, and haute couture—paid due reverence to the heritage of Givenchy while making them relevant in the modern context. Under Waight Keller, men's haute couture too became a more prominent pillar for the Maison.
For four years, Stefano Pilati served as head of design of Ermenegildo Zegna Couture (now simply rebranded as Zegna) where he made full use of the brand's mastery in fabrics to create menswear collections that would certainly qualify as "quiet luxury" in today's context. Pilati's creations were undoubtedly luxurious both in aesthetic as well as feel with designs that pushed Ermenegildo Zegna beyond the confines of traditional menswear.
Both Waight Keller and Pilati—albeit different in styles—share a similarity in that they both followed the traditional path of cutting their teeth at several fashion houses before eventually holding creative reins. Waight Keller started out as part of the design team at Calvin Klein before moving on to Ralph Lauren and then Gucci, while Pilati took on design roles at Giorgio Armani, Prada, Miu Miu, and Yves Saint Laurent. And of course, they're both celebrated fashion designers in their own right.
It's curious then that with the kind of experience and design excellence they both possess, Waight Keller and Pilati weren't snapped up by another big-named fashion house.
Then last year, Waight Keller announced her first solo venture: a new partnership with Uniqlo called Uniqlo : C. The brand—like most under Uniqlo's LifeWear umbrella—focuses on building a capsule wardrobe of staple pieces seen through her designer lens. It was launched with womenswear before introducing menswear in its third season this month. And then two weeks later, Uniqlo announced that Waight Keller's involvement has expanded to not only be the creative behind Uniqlo : C, but also as its creative director for the entirety of the Uniqlo mainline collection beginning from the Autumn/Winter 2024 season.
Pilati launched his own brand Random Identities in 2017 through Instagram. Inspired by Berlin's club scene and the ongoing shift of gendered clothing, Random Identities is stocked on SSENSE.com, Dover Street Market and a number of other select stockists. Much like Waight Keller with Uniqlo, Random Identities is also a departure from the luxury pricing of Pilati's former creations. The brand is certainly more affordable yet still with a design point-of-view. Pilati is doubling down on affordable fashion by recently embarking on a capsule collection with Zara slated for an October 2024 release.
Designer collaborations are rife in fashion, especially the likes that have been pushed by fast-fashion brands such as H&M and Zara. Uniqlo, in fact, has turned its collaborations into longstanding partnerships with Christophe Lemaire, Jonathan Anderson as well as Inès de la Fressange. And quite like with Waight Keller, Lemaire eventually became the creative director of the design-forward Uniqlo U line.
But designers moving out of luxury to more affordable fashion brands as their solo ventures is something that's quite uncommon.
In a 2023 interview with W Magazine, Waight Keller highlighted that the jump from working in a couture house to a brand like Uniqlo was challenging but only in achieving certain techniques at the latter's usual price point. "The brand was so open to understanding new techniques of finishing. I showed them examples of, this is how the spaghetti string that runs through the dresses should look; this is how it should balance. A lot of the things I did on a constant basis whilst I was in Paris are techniques that I was able to distribute through the collection as well. It’s just an innate way of working, or what I’ve absorbed over the years," she said. According to WWD, Pilati expressed similar sentiments about his time working with Zara, especially with the brand's capability of producing at standards above its price point.
It remains to be seen how Waight Keller's Uniqlo and Pilati's co-ed collection for Zara will each shape up to be, and whether the latter could inspire Zara to hire Pilati as its creative director. But what's certain is that there is still hope out there for honed skill and talent of real fashion designers in the fashion space. It may not be at the big fashion houses, but in the bigger scheme of things, they're helping to elevate the designs of pieces for the everyday and for everyone.
British designer Clare Waight Keller has logged time at some of the biggest fashion brands in the world. Born in Birmingham, England, she moved to New York to work on lifestyle labels like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and eventually to Paris to oversee artistic direction at luxury houses Chloé and Givenchy. But when she struck up a partnership with Uniqlo in 2023 to create the Uniqlo : C collection for the juggernaut Japanese brand, she pulled inspiration from somewhere closer to home.
“The start of Uniqlo : C really came out of me working on a collection that was really inspired by Europe, and London in particular,” she explains. “I think because I’ve worked for so many different companies, I wanted a place that really expressed me more than anything. The portrayal of fashion that I really love is so much more about style than the idea of always having cutting-edge pieces. It’s about this sense of timelessness mixed with modernity, and London always has had that for me.”
Prior seasons of C have focused on different neighbourhoods around the English capital; for Autumn 2024, Waight Keller looked to the Barbican Center, a brutalist performing-arts centre that opened in 1982. “I’ve always had a fascination with the Barbican,” she says. “I wanted to just bring in the architecture, the brutalist nature, the fact that it is kind of a city within a city—it really sort of expresses something interesting.”
(UNIQLO)
The result is a collection of pieces that blend Waight Keller’s signature softness with sharp, architectural lines and a muted colour palette punctuated by plaids and checks. Each piece, from a stand-collar parka to a flowing pair of trousers, can be easily mixed and matched with pretty much everything else in the lineup. And most exciting for us here at Esquire, the collection for the first time includes a full array of menswear, with prices ranging from USD40 to USD130. (This isn’t to say shoppers shouldn’t consider buying from both sides of the proverbial aisle. In fact, Waight Keller encourages it, especially with oversized outerwear.)
We caught up with Waight Keller to talk about the collection’s highlights, why she decided to dive into menswear this time, and the one category she was particularly pleased to add to the offering this season. Read a few (condensed and edited) highlights from our conversation.
Because I’ve done menswear in the past, it was always in the back of my mind it would be great to do it, and especially with a company such as Uniqlo, which has a strength in menswear. What’s been fascinating to me over the last few seasons is you just see how much of the product crosses over. I often hear from the mainline collection how much product women shop in menswear and vice versa.
It felt natural to me to branch into menswear, but especially after launching the last couple of collections, we got so many requests through my social media, Uniqlo’s social media, through the online portal… “When’s menswear coming? When’s menswear coming?” It felt like there was a real need for it. In a way, actually, I didn’t push the conversation; it just came to us. It felt like a very natural thing to evolve into men’s.
(UNIQLO)
You become a lot more aware of how real people are dressing in real life. I really love that, because that’s a part of what I used to like injecting into my collections anyway. For me, it’s sort of tapping even more into an area, which I really think is the way forward in fashion. The reality is that it’s on the street, it’s what everybody’s wearing today, and though we have to keep pushing things forward constantly, the real excitement for me is the fact that so many people can wear this collection. It’s so accessible.
I suppose my specific reference comes from British roots, but also it has a softness. As a designer, I’ve been known to have a slight, soft hand in the way I develop my design narrative. I think there is that element of it, even with the menswear, especially this season—like this soft, sort of felted knitted jacket. It harks back to my knitwear heritage [as prior artistic director of Pringle of Scotland], but it’s the idea of this tailoring piece but completely like a cardigan. Then the long parka, which is ultra-ultra-lightweight, so it’s almost the same weight as something that you might find in womenswear. It doesn’t have as much heft, but it’s just the same warmth. It’s those touches of bringing in things that are much more from my point of view and differentiate from what Uniqlo U is doing and what JW Anderson does.
(UNIQLO)
I really hope that the menswear expands even further. I really do think what Uniqlo : C does, and all the collaborations at Uniqlo, is bringing that perspective of a fashion-centric capsule to the big brand that Uniqlo is, one that sells the best basics and the really great classic items. It’s a layer of a fashion focus. I like the fact that it’s a drop. It comes in, and it goes out, and these things are just there for a moment in time. I think between all of the designers that work with Uniqlo and what we do, expanding the menswear even further and making a bit more of a fashion statement in menswear is really key. I’m really excited to grow that even further.
This season is the first time we’re launching any kind of footwear. For me, that was a really important part of finishing the look. We have these monochromatic black and white sneakers—natural sole, low cut, almost like a classic military sneaker. I think there’s that sort of essence of it, coming from a timeless origin and then brought into this new language with Uniqlo : C. It finishes the look both on the men’s and the women’s; they’re completely unisex. I’ve worn them as well. Really, really comfortable.
Originally published on Esquire US
Vietnam-born, New York-based Peter Do is a name that's set to be a force in fashion. Aside from helming his own label, Do was recently named as Helmut Lang's newest creative director with his debut collection to be shown in September 2023. And about a month after that, Do will drop a collection with Banana Republic that's said to be "genderful ready-to-wear pieces and accessories in Peter Do’s signature neutral colour palette, brought to life in Banana Republic’s classic silhouettes". As teasers already show (although we've only seen muslin thus far), the tailoring and make are promising to be crisp and masterful.
The Banana Republic x Peter Do collection is scheduled to drop online and in select Banana Republic stores this October.
Lounging by the beach on Jumby Bay or simply enjoying the garden oasis within Le Bristol Paris, but only to realise that you forgot to pack a pair of sunnies for the trip? Fret not because the Oetker Collection group of hotels have got that sorted. Together with Persol, the group offers guests at select properties—Le Bristol Paris, Château Saint-Martin & Spa, Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa, Jumby Bay Island and Hotel La Palma—to lounge in style with sunglasses from the brand. Six styles have been curated by Persol for each property and are available for guests to pick from a bespoke caddy that also supplies polish and cloths for cleaning. Talk about hospitality.
It's now Professor Craig Green. The British fashion designer has been appointed to lead the fashion design department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In a statement, Green says: "It is a real honour to join the incredible team and students of the Fashion Department. I’m really looking forward to working closely with them over the next three years." Green joins a roster of former professors who have taught at the school including Karl Lagerfeld, Vivienne Westwood, Helmut Lang, and Raf Simons.
After a two-day takeover of Desa Potato Head in Bali this past July, Boiler Room is extending the partnership with a ten-piece summer capsule collection. Taking inspiration from the beach club's sunsets, the main graphic runs rampant throughout the entire collection of tees, a camp collar shirt, a sarong and more. The entire collection is also made from eco-conscious materials, in line with Potato Head's environmentally conscious mission.
The Boiler Room x Potato Head summer capsule collection is now available at Potato Head as well as online through Boiler Room.
After leaving her post as artistic director of Givenchy in 2020, Clare Waight Keller has been keeping a low profile. Now, the British designer is back with a new label in partnership with Uniqlo. UNIQLO:C focuses on elevating the womenswear portion of Uniqlo's LifeWear. And yes, while that means that the debut UNIQLO:C collection will be entirely womenswear, it does look to be consisting of pieces that could be easily worn by both genders (and everything in between). In an interview with Vogue, Waight Keller revealed that this first drop is one of many with an autumn 2024 collection already in the works.
The UNIQLO:C collection drops in Uniqlo stores as well as online on 15 September 2023.
