Per Götesson S/S 2020 London Fashion Week Mens

Males modelling Per Götesson's S/S 2020 collection — Per Götesson S/S 2020. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Mood board: There’s an emotional charge to Götesson’s approach to clothes – his models are swaddled in fabric and archetypal teen uniforms are rebuilt. Hardy fabrics like denim and cotton jersey are twisted around the body with technical rigour and sensitive line. Backstage, the designer spoke about masculinity as something radical and romantic. ‘This queer sensibility connects with everything I do,’ he said. In recent years, London’s dialogue with gender has gone far beyond showing male models in skirts. For Götesson it is in the fall of a fabric or the embellishment of a cuff – the stories hidden inside the clothes.

Best in show: This was classic draping but for a strong, grown-up man. ‘I think this vision of masculinity, and sort of trying to grasp this, is a more inclusive and creative approach from which to build. It comes from a queer place but it is not excluding anyone,’ Götesson said. Old photographs of his partner and frequent collaborator, jeweller Husam El Odeh, became hand-beaded panels stitched onto white shirts and t-shirts; denim was hand-washed, bleached and then washed again, embellished with found bottle-tops. Fabrics swooped around the body with precision and poetry. There was a corporeal gall to the glamour.

Team work: Götesson tailors clothes to the body yet is keen to discover fresh ways of working. He has continued his collaboration with Kathy Mcgee – whom he met whilst a student at RCA – to create biker trousers, an oversize trench and zipped windbreaker using 3D-modelling programs. Her approach is about saving materials and minimising the cost of toiling. ’I am just always interested in finding new processes of making things; for someone like me who uses their hands, it is interesting to use digital technologies because it isn’t my language. I work with one piece and drape, Kathy does it with 300 pieces!’ Götesson said.

Four male models wearing Per G&ouml;tesson S/S 2020

Males wearing printed t shirts from Per G&ouml;tesson's S/S 2020 collection

Males modelling clothes and accessories from Per G&ouml;tesson's S/S 2020 collection

Males modelling Per G&ouml;tesson's S/S 2020 collection

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.