Art School S/S 2018. Models dressed in skirts, dresses, makeup and wigs
Art School S/S 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans
(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Mood board: MAN is (thankfully) totally bonkers. The seasonal presentation of menswear’s freshest talents plucked straight from design school by Fashion East founder Lulu Kennedy is now in its 12th year. The landscape of fashion might have changed exponentially with a drive towards commerce over creativity, yet Kennedy and her team still know how to curate a cast that will be sure to inject some energy and verve into the seasonal offering. S/S 2018 had extreme denim, Vaudevillian drag and silicone surrealism.

Best in show: Swedish born RCA graduate Per Götesson, showing for his second season with MAN, presented languid tough clothes in utilitarian fabrics. His MA collection explored radical volumes for denim and for S/S 2018 Götesson scaled up jeans and exposed stitching on coats: ‘It’s about finding new ways with denim,’ he said. Götesson collaborated with London-based jeweller Husam el Odeh who elevated found objects; a cigarette dipped in silver became a broach, pink shells were fashioned into earrings and necklaces.

Scene setting: The mood at Fashion East is always one of openness and extremism – the sort that John Waters would be proud of. This season, designer duo Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt (known collectively as Art School) debuted at MAN with a gaggle of non-binary eccentrics. Each paraded Art School’s brand of quotidian queer couture with charming élan. Rottingdean Bazaar cast a series of household objects (matchsticks, keys, copper coins, scissors) in lightweight polyurethane foam directly onto cotton jersey separates worn by models including Central Saint Martins tutor Gail Evans and the English performance artist David Hoyle.

Art School S/S 2018 model wearing full read 1 piece suit

Art School S/S 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Per Götesson S/S 2018. models wearing pink suit, smart pants and various sweaters/shirts

Per Götesson S/S 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Per Götesson S/S 2018 models wearing various outfits, blues, whites

Per Götesson S/S 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Rottingdean Bazaar S/S 2018 models wearing black with symbolic items

Rottingdean Bazaar S/S 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Rottingdean Bazaar S/S 2018 Models wearing black with printed images, headwear

Rottingdean Bazaar S/S 2018. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

London based writer Dal Chodha is editor-in-chief of Archivist Addendum — a publishing project that explores the gap between fashion editorial and academe. He writes for various international titles and journals on fashion, art and culture and is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. Chodha has been working in academic institutions for more than a decade and is Stage 1 Leader of the BA Fashion Communication and Promotion course at Central Saint Martins. In 2020 he published his first book SHOW NOTES, an original hybrid of journalism, poetry and provocation.