Telfar Present A New Perspective On Inclusive Fashion: Closing The Doors

August is notoriously fashion’s sleepiest month: a time when Instagram is overtaken by shots of Ibiza jaunts and trips to Deia rather than breaking news. That is, unless you’re Telfar, the idiosyncratic New York-based brand who have never done anything by the book. On Friday night, in lieu of staging scenic holiday snaps, designer Telfar Clemens and creative director Babak Radboy took the opportunity of Serpentine Galleries’ annual Park Nights programme to present a preview of their spring/summer 2019 collection, by way of a choral performance by South African collective FAKA held within Frida Escobedo’s recently-erected Pavilion.

Dressed in Telfar’s new season designs, FAKA's Fela Gucci and Desire Marea – accompanied by a line-up of their London peers – presented a haunting, acapella performance as the sun set in Hyde Park, which the audience were invited to view through the woven concrete walls. “We hate the idea that ‘we’re performing for you,’” explained Telfar. “No – you wanna see this performance, so let’s change the narrative.” Hordes of Londoners silently pressed their faces up against the confines to watch the movements of the dancers, wearing Telfar’s crisp-cut denim and jersey athleisure, first jostling for prime position before eventually calming down to let others move forward.

In situ, not only was the performance a remarkable spectacle but equally a curiously anthropological exercise; there was something about FAKA’s soothing harmonies, about the performers’ beautifully serene interactions within the Pavilion, that appeared conducive to a natural democracy. Nobody was pushing each other out of the way; people kept checking that the strangers alongside them had found a good spot. “Music is a collective thing that is part of everybody,” explained Babak. “It’s a useful tool for affecting human beings.” Occasionally, someone with a hand-held camera would pop up alongside you: it turns out the audience, too, will be part of the video of the evening captured by London-based filmmaker Akinola Davies. “You’ve been choreographed into a larger performance,” Babak said. “It’s no longer about that division. Your body is part of it; you’re not just watching.”

Telfar have long been celebrated for their inclusive, genderless approach to fashion which, despite winning them a CFDA Award last year, has routinely subverted the traditional system: last season, they presented their collection as part of a concert fronted by the likes of Dev Hynes, Selah Marley and Kelsey Lu; later, their Instagram followers were invited to vote on which garments were put into production (“We want to democratize fashion by letting YOU VOTE on the clothes,” they said. “SHOW STORES WHAT’S COOL”). “That’s what we’re trying to segue into… we’d love to eventually leave the fashion system as it is, and just make a collection that’s part of a piece of music, and go on tour with it," said Babak. “Fashion has rules and ways of going about things that people have long set in stone,” continues Telfar, “and I hate that.”

But now that exploring non-binary and marginalised spaces and communities has become ever so trendy, their disruptive spirit has proven newly magnetic (it is worth noting that Telfar has been running since 2005; while they might be one of the brands of the moment, they have been 13 years in the business). Accordingly, the performance was entitled "Not For You, For Everyone" because, “after the attention of the CFDA Awards, the closed doors [of the Pavilion] were like a metaphor for a space we’re trying to create,” explained Babak. “People keep trying to put these easy-to-digest labels on us: inclusive, diverse, whatever… we feel like people are putting a narrative on us so that it looks like they’re doing something awesome and everyone can feel fabulous.” It’s a fair point to make – until there is systemic change, bandying buzzwords about feels fairly louche – but if the success of Friday night, held in the middle of summer, inside a closed Pavilion, is anything to go by, then they’re going to struggle to keep the industry out.