How Fashion Provocateur, Gareth Pugh, Is Abandoning Runway Convention This Season

Ever since designer Gareth Pugh launched his eponymous label in 2006, he has been known not only for the painstaking precision of his avant-garde silhouettes and the remarkable dramatics of his seasonal collections, but equally for his profound rejection of convention. Spring/Summer 2018 is certainly no different: we can exclusively reveal that, in lieu of staging a catwalk show during London Fashion Week, Pugh will be presenting a high-octane film to showcase his collection, created in collaboration with renowned photographer Nick Knight.

"At heart of this film is a violent rejection of the status quo, built around the idea of 'duende'," Pugh explained this morning. "It's about how you translate a feeling into image-making that you could live or die by." Pugh will be screening this film at London's BFI IMAX, on the largest cinema screen in Europe (it is the height of four double-decker buses) to the same audience who would have been present at a runway show. However, by eschewing the traditional format, "it's incredibly democratic; presenting a collection on film means that you can sidestep the usual gatekeepers", he says. "It's totally non-negotiable. The work speaks for itself, and it can go anywhere and everywhere." In fact, as the curtains are raised at the IMAX, the film will simultaneously screen to a worldwide audience.

Pugh continued to explain that it was the absolute control that film allows that inspired this move away from the runway. "When you know you need to get it right - when the depth of feeling is so strong that you need it to be executed exactly as you'd wish - then film allows you to do that. Nick is a creative anarchist, and there's no-one else like him. It's never been a question of the most practical option, or 'how is this going to be perceived?' Instead it's only about trying to create images that penetrate and that hijack the mind; images that can take you a place where you feel something visceral and deeply affecting."

And so, we shall wait with bated breath – bring on Saturday, September 16th.