JW Anderson On Why Collaborations Get The Best Results

What you have to realise with a collaboration is that you cannot over control it because then it loses its excitement,” Jonathan Anderson says walking around Soho’s new temporary Toy Gallery. The space, populated with coloured cubes, soft play boxes and Perspex display cases, is the joint retail experience of Anderson and Converse, and celebrates the latest Chuck 70 “Toy” trainers the Irish designer has imagined for the brand.

Now in its second season, there is no danger of the excitement fizzling out of this partnership. Anderson’s new Chucks, with loud patent vinyl instead of canvas and terry toweling as laces, mirror the playground quality of the gallery. “There was something I really liked about the collaboration being just bizarre,” he explains of creating the dégradé gel and soft pile materials. “Sometimes you want something that is, in a weird way, slightly ugly, because I think that's where you find newness. You always find newness through things that your eyes aren't used to.”

The trainer styles were not born out of a wild Willy Wonka-esque session in the studio, but a streamlined design process with functionality at its core. “When you have a product which is so iconic, it forces you to be focused, because there is a parameter you have to remain within,” he asserts. “I actually think you get better results through collaborating because you've got restraints in terms of their branding, our branding, and then in terms of construction. You have to think more about product design than fashion design.”

Designing the functional object is something Anderson holds dear, because he lives in Converse himself. “I'm obsessed by this idea of a uniform,” he explains. “When I design it's very difficult for me to wear fashion, because I feel like I have to keep continuing to reinvent myself. If I was to wear something new, then I feel like I would be trapped somehow.” At an estimate, his wardrobe comprises 100 white T-shirts, 100 black T-shirts, 100 grey T-shirts, 100 navy T-shirts, 30 pairs of chinos, 30 pairs of jeans, one style of Converse, one style of trainer, one style of Oxford shoes, a leather jacket, a Gore-Tex jacket… He pauses: “It’s a very non-thinking process. It's not that I believe that I'm a classic person, but I feel like that is all that I could physically cope with.”

He gets a kick out of others wearing his creations, though. “Sometimes in design you go places internally, but you don't actually see the physical reality of someone wearing the product. You’re so consumed by the show outfit, and then when you get surprised by it [in real life], it’s completely different from how you imagined it.”

As fans line up to visit Anderson’s playground on Beak Street, there’s plenty of Converse x JW Anderson trainers to be seen. “The whole joy of Chucks is that they become the person somehow,” he laughs of preferring the scuffed, beaten-up versions on Soho’s streets as opposed to those on display.

There’s more than glossy trainers to visit for. Over the next three days, zine workshops and discussions with curator Kimberly Drew, female creative network Babyface and multi-media artists Kusheda Mensa, Christabel MacGreevy and Antonia Marsh will take place. “My philosophy is that I don't feel like I work, so anyone I work with has to be someone that has the same philosophy, and they enjoy what they're doing,” Anderson explains of his line-up. Visit the Toy Gallery and you can have no doubt that this personal mission statement is infectious for those who work with him too.

The Converse x JW Anderson Toy Gallery is situated on 20 Beak Street, W1F 9RE, and is open until July 22. The Toy trainers are priced from £120-£130. To apply for tickets for the events, email RSVP@toygallery.co.uk.