London’s Fashion Alphabet

Abstract

sonal style. At an average of forty-five minutes focusing on one interview subject, Cvetkovic is able to plumb the depths of their personal experience in dressing: all three subjects cite their fathers as catalysts for early interests in clothing. The conversational and unscripted edit of these discussions allows the telling parts of oral testimony, the pauses and the exclamations, to speak volumes. The pleasure or distaste the interviewees feel for certain garments, the excitement about the discovery of a new inspiration is captured in the tenor and content of their telling. Episodes ‘#32 Scott Fraser Simpson’ and ‘#33 Andr e Larnyoh’ spend time examining the cultural touchpoints they consider stylish (examples include Miles Davis, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Mod scene in Brighton and Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley). In ‘#39 Fred Nieddu’, the subject’s varied prior experience, working in multi-brand retail shops and apprenticing in different tailoring houses, coheres in his current practice where he insists on an open mind toward construction techniques, drawing from outside the traditional British methods of Savile Row. The strength of both podcasts ultimately lies in using oral testimony to highlight how the individual, personal experience of dress can speak to larger societal constructs. Articles of Interest episode ‘#10 Suits’ begins and ends with Rae Tuturo of custom suit maker Bindle & Keep discussing the sense of self they found in suiting and how they parlayed that into a business that aimed to dress any gender. Episode ‘#3 Pockets’ questions what tools might be necessary for us to carry if we lived in a more equitable society — would housekeys matter if there were no fear of theft driving us to lock our doors? In episode #33 of Handcut Radio, Cvetkovic posits that style inspiration should not be drawn just from the dress habits of an individual, but also their wider ethics and behaviour. Toward the end of that same interview, Larnyoh poses an open question to the audience, formed from his own experience feeling isolated in the world of tailoring and luxury: why are black designers and style personalities not included at the forefront of ‘menswear’? While taking different approaches, Articles of Interest as a narrative journey through concepts of dress and Handcut Radio as the musings and autobiographies of dressed individuals, both podcasts provide profound insights into the experience and meaning of being dressed.