“That boy is one hell of a talent,” Lou Dalton told Clash last year. “Ain't seen nothing like it in a long time, something very special there.”
Shaun Samson, the Sibling three, Kit Neale, Alan Taylor and Astrid Andersen also independently identified Craig Green SS14 as a collection they were excited to see, ahead of the third London Collections: Men in June 2013.
Elsewhere Charlie Porter and Alexander Fury – two of the industries most prominent journalists, putting pen to paper for the likes of The Financial Times and The Independent, respectively – have each expressed great joy at the sight of Green’s wares.
Fury put one of his AW13 wooden plank headpieces on the cover of the The Independent Magazine in October; Porter’s personal website carries almost monthly Green updates.
Craig Green then, it would transpire, is London menswear’s golden boy, and on Saturday his SS14 tie dye collection launched in the notorious Dover Street Market as part of Tachiagari, the store’s biannual reconfiguration of the shop floor which sees the doors close shut for the ultimate stock re-haul.
“The Amazingness” came Porter; “Quite great” tweeted Fury.
“I used to go to Dover Street Market when I was in Uni, and I was always awestruck by it. The space and concept were exactly how I envisioned retail,” the designer told Style.com yesterday.
As is tradition at DSM, Craig had full control of how his space should look, piecing together and whitewashing a wooden frame to act as a rail. “I am obsessed in the possibilities in certain materials and techniques,” he told Clash when we first profiled him in January 2012.
The obsession remained, as each of his three most recent collections – shown as part of MAN, of which Porter is a panel member – suggest. AW13 saw ‘Die Slow’ by Health practically deafening from the speakers, and the aforementioned headpieces causing a similarly loud bang.
For his final collection as part of the men’s trio – completed by Taylor and Bobby Abley – he presented floor length coats featuring three layers of hand painted patterns; Roxette’s ‘Listen To Your Heart’ soundtracked, in stark contrast to his debut.
Ahead of DSM’s interest (he is also stocked in the December opened New York branch), Green picked up the L'Oréal Professionnel Creative Award for his MA collection, debuted at London Fashion Week at the beginning of 2012 with Central Saint Martins, where he studied for seven years.
The same collection was nominated alongside Prada and Louis Vuitton last year, as a Design of The Year in The Design Museum’s annual exhibition, while in December he lost out to Agi & Sam for the Emerging Talent Award: Menswear at the British Fashion Awards; Christopher Shannon – for whom Green has previously worked– was also nominated.
Despite early intentions – originally planning to paint, with little interest in fashion – Craig Green is today at the centre of a much respected label, both creatively and commercially.
For every David Gandy or Daily Mail who dismiss what he’s doing, there is a Bally or adidas who want a piece of it for themselves. Likewise for all but the two UK stockists on his list (OTHER/shop is the second and was the first), there are sales that could be made.
In November he signed with one of London’s biggest PR agencies, which will no doubt be sure to make his name travel even further, to be absorbed beyond the industry insiders of SHOWstudio panels and the like.
“My work always seems to be centred on boyhood fantasy,” he told Clash prior to his MA show, but the acclaim that surrounds Craig Green in 2014 is all real.
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