‘He challenged the way we see things’: JW Anderson’s collaboration with Michael Clark has arrived

The provocative, pioneering British dancer and choreographer Michael Clark – who rose to prominence in London in the early 1980s – has long provided a cultural touchpoint for fashion designer Jonathan Anderson, who first discovered Clark’s work while at university in the early 2000s. 

‘I became completely obsessed,’ says Anderson, who this past February at London’s Roundhouse (during London Fashion Week A/W 2023) presented an A/W 2023 collection that featured a number of pieces created in collaboration with Clark – from T-shirts and vests emblazoned with the Michael Clark Company logo to slogans and iconography taken from his performance posters and flyers (including, memorably, a phallus-emblazoned top that referenced an advertisement for a performance at The Roundhouse, a location Clark returned to throughout his career).

JW Anderson x Michael Clark has arrived

’Michael Clark is an incipit. A starter, a white page, the agitator who defied the system,’ said Anderson at the time, noting that the collection itself looked back at a number of pieces from throughout his own eponymous label’s 15-year history. ‘He is embedded deep, somewhere, in the foundation of JW Anderson and impels now the urgency of a blank slate.

‘At its core, this is a collection about fandom – completely personal, frequently irrational, often embarrassing,’ he continued. ‘As I look back through my own archive for this show, resurrecting elements from each collection of the last 15 years, Michael helped me rifle through this. It helped me pinpoint my own obsessions.’

As of this week, the capsule collection – titled JW Anderson x Michael Clark – arrives in stores and on the JW Anderson website. There is a paper bag-style clutch imprinted with the Michael Clark Company logo – alongside the T-shirts, vests and tote bags from the show which featured the same motif – as well as imagery from the collection’s show set printed across further T-shirts and shirts. Other slogans, like ‘Witch?’, ‘Sham Man’ and ‘The Dentist’ are transposed onto sweaters and caps.

‘The first time I came across Michael Clark was when I was at university,’ Anderson said this week ahead of the collection’s launch. ’It was not until I got the Michael Clark book, though, that I completely fell in love with him, and what he had contributed to the British landscape in terms of art, dance and the way that we look at things, or the way we challenge the body, or challenge the way that we see things, or perceive the idea of what we think is wrong and right.’

JW Anderson x Michael Clark is available now in stores and online.

jwanderson.com