Wilfred wears shirt, £410; shorts, £370; belt, £190, all by Jordanluca. Tie, available to rent from Costume Studio. Alexander wears cape, price on request, by Jordanluca
(Image credit: Photography by Grace Difford, fashion by Nicola Neri))
First seen in the March 2023 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, we meet six rising stars – including Jordanluca, featured here – tearing up the catwalks of the Milan fashion scene with a fresh energy and creative spirit.
Jordan Bowen and Luca Marchetto established Jordanluca in 2018, showing for several seasons in London before shifting their collections to Milan in 2022. Merging Marchetto’s Italian heritage with the countercultural energy of Bowen’s native London, the pair’s visceral menswear collections often feature jarring elements that conjure teenage angst – whether a necklace evocative of the thorns of a rose, thigh-high lace-up leather boots or voluminous patchwork jeans which drag along the floor in the wearer’s wake.
Their S/S 2023 collection, titled ‘Sabotage’, channels ‘existential threats like madness, annihilation and grizzly, premature death’. ‘It’s about Freud’s death drive, enacted and re-enacted every day by millions of us as we’re drawn irresistibly to 101 forms of self-destruction and dangerous pleasure,’ say the designers, who showed the collection in June 2022 on an eclectic group of models cast from the street (a soft-punk version of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive served as its soundtrack).
‘The collection is about how we’re drawn irresistibly to 101 forms of self-destruction’
Jordan Bowen and Luca Marchetto
The pieces themselves see menswear archetypes reimagined in the duo’s distinct style: a pair of jeans is etched with a burnt-out unique jack, edges dishevelled and frayed, tank tops and tailored jackets slice open at the chest with zips, while corporate white poplin shirts are supersized and cut away at the sleeve. Hints of hedonism and glamour come in flourishes of lace, languid flared trousers, and 1970s-tinged prints. The designers liken the season’s aesthetic to the pursuit of pleasures you know are bad for you – much like, they say, the strange desire to pick away a scab on the skin.
Of the decision to show their collections in Milan going forward, the pair say they are energised by the city’s growing creative scene – in both fashion and beyond. ‘Milan has changed massively in the last few years,’ they say. ‘Italy is a huge part of our brand and business, and it’s exciting to be part of a new wave of designers reimagining what it could be in the future.’
Models: Katie Johnson at Models 1, Wilfried and Adeline at Xdirectn, Alexander Carey-Morgan at Tomorrow Is Another Day. Casting: Svea Casting Hair: Tosh at Streeters. Make-up: Jimmy Owen Jones at Julian Watson Agency using Dior Forever Foundation and Capture Totale Super Potent Serum. Manicure: Cherrie Snow Set design: Lizzy Gilbert. Photography assistants: Max Glatzhofer, Benedict Moore. Fashion assistant: Stoyan Chuchuranov. Set assistant: Aliou Janha Hair assistant: Leanne Millar.
Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*. Having previously held roles at 10, 10 Men and AnOther magazines, he joined the team in 2022. His work has a particular focus on the moments where fashion and style intersect with other creative disciplines – among them art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and profiling the industry’s leading figures and brands.
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