Acclaimed Newgen designer, Richard Malone, is the latest to light up the cultural offerings of London's Greenwich Peninsula. Launching at Now Gallery this week, ‘Rinse, Repeat’ – offers a multifarious riff on cheap launderettes, the never ending cycle of fashion seasons, and designers’ recurring themes and motifs – and invites the public into Malone’s expansive and inventive world.
Having graduated from Central Saint Martins’ womenswear BA where he was awarded the prestigious LVMH Grand Prix scholarship in 2014, Malone went on to win the Deutsche Bank Award, show three seasons under the banner of Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East and three more (and counting) with Newgen at London Fashion Week.
In a short time he’s become renowned for his sustainable practice, use of waste materials, playful colour and print, and architectural shapes that are at once both outlandish and wearable. It’s a relative whirlwind career but between his explorative artistic approach to design and his roster of private clients for whom he creates bespoke commissions – pioneering women in the fashion and arts from Julia Muggenburg to Farshid Moussavi, Björk and Sinead Burke to name but a few that can be named – Malone has a burgeoning body of work.
Portrait of Richard Malone.
Beginning his higher education at a ‘quite traditional and shit’ course at a sculpture college in Ireland – Malone’s basis is in art. His initial projects dealt in performance as well as many of the themes he returns to today: building materials and printing techniques. ‘Because there was so much to do with the body, and shapes around the body, they advised me to apply for fashion,’ Malone explains over lunch.
Sculpture and fine art practises remained his core passion but it was the prize money from Deutsche Bank Award – and the conditional first collection – that forced him to keep to the fashion path. ‘I like the pace, it's more intense and you make so much work. The cycle is a bit exhausting – for your eyes as well now, with social media and all of that imagery; you can get really exhausted looking at these fashion images.’
With a bid to uproot this closed loop, Malone takes residence at the Marks Barfield-designed pavilion of Now Gallery, following the likes of Molly Goddard, Camille Walala and Fred Butler. Comprising iPhone-shot reference imagery, poetry, sketches, audio recordings of Richard in conversation with some of his most vocal clients, clothing arranged as sculpture and clothing for visitors to try on, ‘Rinse, Repeat’, eschews any traditional notions of the fashion exhibition.
So too, do the videos documenting the processes used to create and recycle his sustainable fabrics – ‘I don't think anyone really sees that’ – and the vitrines, dedicated to the women who’ve supported him, spanning the professional relationships to that with his artistic grandmother. ‘She was a commercial seamstress for a hospital, but she did all these creative things – painting stones, weird things… The vitrines are more sentimental, which I think is overlooked a lot in fashion – it plays a huge part in the making of the clothes.’
Malone’s pièce de resistance is the exterior, where a large-scale projected video will show dancer Finetta Mikolajska dancing in Malone’s creations, revealing the unexpected flexibility of his bombastic, moulded pieces. ‘It's quite funny to project something a bit weird and avant-garde, opposite the O2 Arena – people are sometimes really intimidated to go into those gallery spaces, like my parents for example. Passersby will have to see it, because it's right there outside the building, and it's quite democratic in a way.’
INFORMATION
‘Rinse, Repeat’ is on view at Now Gallery until 27 January 2019. For more information, visit the Now Gallery website
ADDRESS
The Gateway Pavilions
Peninsula Square
London SE10 0SQ
-
Rado’s ceramic watches take inspiration from the world’s great gardensNew additions to the Rado True Thinline watch collection reinterpret exotic plants
-
‘Meaningful disruption’: Heron Preston launches L.E.D. Studio, a convention-defying creative hub
Part art and design studio, part sustainability practice, Heron Preston’s L.E.D. Studio builds on the world he has built at his eponymous New York City-based fashion label. Here, he tells Wallpaper* more
-
Exploring Punta del Este, the southern hemisphere’s hub for art and relaxation
Punta del Este offers everything, from party to relaxation; all enveloped in idyllic countryside and a rich cultural offering
-
Canada Goose and Central Saint Martins celebrate next-generation changemakers in new London exhibition
‘Keeping the Planet Cold’ – running from 17-21 February 2023 at London’s Lethaby Gallery – celebrates exceptional BA and MA fashion students in the field of sustainable and purpose-driven design
-
Mud pits to giant flowers, the best runway sets of S/S 2023
The most transporting show sets of the S/S 2023 season, from Demna’s pit of mud at Balenciaga to a giant fibreglass anthurium flower at Loewe
-
New short film takes you behind the scenes at Margaret Howell
A Working Space provides a behind-the-scenes look at 34 Wigmore Street, Margaret Howell’s London headquarters, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year
-
Samuel Ross announces fourth chapter of Black British Artist Grant Programme
Awarding Black British talent across design disciplines, this week designer Samuel Ross of A-Cold-Wall* launches the latest edition of his artist grant programme which is accepting applications now
-
In Memoriam: Issey Miyake (1938 – 2022)
We remember fashion designer Issey Miyake, who has died aged 84
-
At rising label Ester Manas, one size fits all
‘It’s for a woman who really wants to be seen,’ says Ester Manas of her eponymous label, designed alongside partner Balthazar Delepierre, which is creating sensually minded clothing for women of all sizes
-
Morocco’s Agafay desert provides the backdrop for Saint Laurent’s latest menswear collection
Marrakech was a place of spiritual escape and inspiration for Yves Saint Laurent in his lifetime. This past weekend, current Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello returned to Morocco for an awe-inspiring S/S 2023 menswear show held in the Agafay desert
-
Margaret Howell London Fashion Week Women's S/S 2019
