Richard Malone
Mid-week on the afternoon following RINSE, REPEAT’s private view – in which fashion and culture fans congregated at Greenwich Peninsula’s NOW Gallery to watch fashion critic Sarah Mower quiz Irish designer Richard Malone on his creative practice – four young women take over the gallery. Taking turns to engage with the spiralling fabric sculptures that fill the room, the group film one another wearing the pieces and take selfies in the mirrored back wall; half the party are sporting flares, a silhouette reinstated to fashion’s frontlines in tandem with the advance of the Malone name (the shape frequently appears in his collections, whether in a vibrant red and blue floral or a more conservative navy).
“They are like giant slinkies that have a life of their own,” the gallery’s curator, Jemima Burrill notes of the installation’s custom-made sculptures, though the line fits with Richard’s trousers too. “Once worn [they] become something very different, they come alive.” The Wexford-native is celebrated for his commitment to bodies – women’s bodies – and this latter thinking: “I don’t think there is much to clothes, until people are in them,” he concurs on the gallery’s website.
Ex-Fashion East and formerly Newgen-backed, Malone first made noise in 2015 with an AW collection that treasured volume, quilting and mint green, announcing a unique, sometimes awkward but ultimately desirable aesthetic that endures today: at his Friday morning fashion week slot in September he presented a vision for SS19 that boasted silk pleats, striped ruching and cropped balloon jackets. Sometimes his clothes claim abstract qualities, but fundamentally he’s an advocate for (elevated) functionality, a nod to the Ireland that inspires his world, and sustainability.
For several years he’s worked with a community of women artisans in Southern India: “I went there to work on a freelance organic denim project and all these amazing weavers were weaving denim which is incredibly boring when you have the skill to weave amazing jackets,” he told Mower on Tuesday. “It’s very respected there, but there’s more and more pressure, when someone has a skill where the labour’s slightly cheaper, to turn it into something profitable, so the government supported this community. They pay for the education for the children and the education for the women as well, and they’re highly paid, they can afford nice lives for themselves and their kids, but also they collaborate with designers like me.”
RINSE, REPEAT, which positions Malone with designers Charles Jeffrey and Molly Goddard – who collaborated with the gallery respectively on The Come Up in 2017 and What I Like in 2016 – isn’t the first example of his work being read in an art-led context, but is perhaps the most democratic (the gallery is placed beside London’s O2 and doesn’t ask for an entrance fee). In 2016, pieces from his SS16 collection were included in the Design Museum’s Design of the Year exhibition, while last year a custom-made piece (referencing SS17) appeared in MoMa’s Items: Is Fashion Modern? and was later acquired by the museum, one of only two fashion pieces picked up by MoMa’s archive — the other is an Issey Miyake.
“Richard Malone’s clothes are colourful and have a sculptural quality,” describes Burrill of her initial desire to work with the designer. “We were keen to have a designer with a sustainable practice. The sculptures in the exhibition are made of fabric knitted from repurposed school uniform acrylic. All his clothes are made in the UK and his knitwear is made in Scotland. His fabric is dyed in India using plant-based dyes by people he knows and his philosophy is looking at a way of producing clothes that have a thoughtful quality, not just to be worn once and then discarded. Plus, his clothes look fabulous and are worn by people who are real and love his designs.”
Those people are, alongside known figures such as Bjork and Sinéad Burke, predominantly from the art world, shopping with a generous budget and often from an age group that is too frequently ignored on the catwalk, in magazines and within advertising. “Before I had retail [I had private clients],” Malone states. “It teaches you a lot about clothes, because I wouldn’t say that I exactly wear menswear – I don’t – but I would say that they have a different way of living and working that you have to understand in order to make clothes for them.” Relaying the virtues of the label’s fit model he adds, “She’s a 10/12, she’s a woman I like and respect and is amazing, and she’s the one that comes in and tells us if something’s comfortable or not because she is a woman, she’s not a 16 year-old.”
Other elements of the designer’s practice and person surface in the exhibition via three large vitrines, accompanied by audio supplements, with photo research, illustrations and fabric samples all highlighted: here his two-page Repeal The 8th open letter is soundtracked by a conversation with his grandmother Nellie Malone; there a montage of show time BTS plays beside stills of toiles. “His vitrines are a beautiful take on his process which you would not normally get to see,” says Burrill, “and the films he has made are very moving and powerful and also witty.” The concluding part of the installation – and an integral component of the proposed conversation between creator, performer and viewer from which the show finds its name (rinse and repeat) – the films in question showcase the sculptures in motion, worn by dancers captured on film.
Seeing how a designer “can think beyond clothes but within the parameters of their practice” was hugely important to Burrill’s team she writes via email. “We have 10 million people walking past us going to the O2, if one or two people are attracted by Richard Malone’s moving image and decide to come and see the workings of a fashion designer and try on a sculpture, be in his space and see a smart, creative mind at work – that is an inspiration.”
RINSE, REPEAT is open now at NOW Gallery until 27 January 2019.
All images courtesy of Now Gallery.