J.W. Anderson is one of the most exciting designers to explode onto the London fashion scene in recent years. Fact. In little more than a nanosecond, he's deftly maneuvered from awesomely awkward outsider to the ultimate hipster darling, with a Topshop collaboration under his belt, Alexa Chung on his arm, and the BFC Emerging Talent award on his mantelpiece. Donatella has even snapped him up for her Versus line, for goodness sake.
So, we're a little surprised by his interview with the Evening Standard, where he hates on the undeniable cornerstone of womenswear: the dress. Earth-shattering stuff, particularly now, at the height of party season.
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“Nowadays women want to mix things, a dress limits you in that capacity,” he tells the newspaper. But what really upsets him is glitzy red-carpet dressing. “Evening wear is only for award ceremonies and tripe. It’s a performance, a forced conviction. You don’t have to be intelligent to do that.”
If you listen carefully you, can hear the sound of a thousand Hollywood starlets sobbing into wardrobes.
It's certainly a bold statement, especially when his London Fashion Week contemporaries like Mary Katrantzou and Marios Schwab have stormed Hollywood with their innovative, intelligent creations, but you've got to respect a man with (fashion) principles — and at least we know to discount him from our Oscar red-carpet predictions.
Photo: Courtesy of J.W. Anderson/Thomas Lohr