Meet the London label taking inspiration from the city’s constant commuters

Commuter culture is strong in the British capital. Astronomical rental prices often mean hour-long tube rides to work, and when not shuffling to and from the office, then there are the routine trips on the Heathrow Express to see clients in Ghent or align with the Frankfurt team. The London label, Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE—named after the home countries of the founding members (Russia, French Canada and Germany)—takes inspiration from the mundane activity that seems to occupy so much of the city’s time.

“Travel is so interesting,” Karl Felix, the German (DE) member of the brand says. “In London people are commuting all the time into the centre. At night they look so different than in the morning. Their mood changes, but also their garments change in movement.” Apart from the daily back-and-forth, the team sees the waiting rooms of airports a lot of when visiting family members and returning to the city. Felix says he and fellow designers, Alexandra Vincent the French Canadian (Fr.CA) member and Zarina Bekerova from Russia (RUS), are always taken by the clash of cultures and class that comes together to in flight queues: businessmen in suits stand side-by-side sweatpants-sporting holidaymakers.

The different daily pilgrimages inform the brand’s debut collection, most notably in how they approach the traditionally rigid structure of the suit. While most of us stand in front of the mirror to evaluate our outfits, the Mainline designers wanted to create clothes that you can sit in, since that is what most of us end up doing all day. To facilitate this, they added creases in areas such as the upper torso, thighs, and the back of the crotch that are usually stressed by seated postures.

 “We love the uniform aesthetic, but we asked ourselves what the suit means—it is such a status symbol,” Vincent says. “They are not necessarily designed to be comfortable or show the body, as they act as a sort of protection. Our suits are made out of very stretchy fabrics so they are very comfortable, but at the same time they are very revealing, you see a lot of the body—they are very tight.”

Reintroducing sexiness into the wardrobe is important to the brand. They look to deconstruct rules about loaded garments, like mini-skirts, which are policed at work or in schools, and they mirror the highly tailored masculine construction of the suit with the regimented moulding of corsets. While two of the members started with the study of menswear at their respective universities, the designers had no desire to segment their collection into genders.

“We have this pinstriped suit that is almost like a corset, it has room for the female breasts, but also for the masculine shoulder,” Felix says. “It has nothing to do with the typical tailoring of these garments, but we created pieces that people feel comfortable in and emphasise the parts of the body that we like.”

 To unveil the project, Mainline showed the collection in a performance piece, choreographed by Russian dance artist Asya Ashman, which took place off-calendar during Paris Men’s week in June. It’s a growing trend seen with young labels, who are increasingly bored with the traditional catwalk show and crave more context for their lines.

“A performance is about a process without focusing on an end result, like in a fashion show, where it happens and then it’s over. For our first season it was about involving a diversity of people to experience travel as a physical and spiritual transit,” says Vincent. “The rehearsals are not just about practicing movements— Asya created a space of discovery which brought a sense of togetherness within the performers.”

 See more from the collection below: