by Keanu Adorable
British brand Folk have collaborated with the ever so talented Goss Brothers, no not Matt and Luke tut, on a capsule collection and gallery pop-up shop. The menswear collection fuses art, fashion and literature in a collaboration with the artists Nick and Phil Goss. The collection of around 20 pieces is the result of an ongoing exploration of the J.G.Ballard novel, The Drowned World. This dystopian sci-fi book creates a vision of the future where the ice caps have melted and the planet is burning up. London is unfortunately submerged under water, a nightmarish, stinking tropical swamp where alligators and strange prehistoric reptiles are unleashed and pelicans squawk in the angry red sky. It’s a work of fiction, at the moment, but for the artists, it strikes a very raw nerve.
The collaboration is the result of a chance meeting between Folk’s founder Cathal Mcateer and Nick Goss in the brand’s Soho store. “Nick was wearing my favourite Folk jacket,” recalls Mcateer. They got chatting and realised they shared a mutual admiration for each other’s work. Mcateer had seen Nick’s work in the Josh Lilley Gallery and connected with his paintings.
“A lot of the way I make paintings is really material based,” says Nick Goss who experiments with the fabric quality of the canvas, using fabric dye to create otherworldly landscapes. “I tend to use lots of linens and fabrics and stain them and I’m really drawn to natural indigos, bright yellow – real Folk colours. It’s probably why I was drawn to Folk in the first place.” It is a meeting of minds and aesthetics.For their first fashion collaboration, the brothers took The Drowned World as their inspiration. It taps into the current feeling of unease and instability in the world, politically and environmentally. RCA graduate Phil Goss has a more illustrative quality to his work and his drawings – flamingos, reptiles and zig zags of water – add a surreal quality to Nick’s more painterly radioactive sunsets and watery reflections.“The Drowned World lets you into this crazy other world of hyper intense imagery and atmosphere,” says Phil Goss.
The resulting collection is a bold and graphic taste of the novel itself, transposed eloquently onto limited edition T-shirts, shorts, summer shirts and sweatshirts. This is wearable art. A pop-up shop on London’s Redchurch Street will fuse gallery and retail space to show the clothing against a backdrop of the Goss Brothers’ paintings and drawings. “More now than ever, people want to connect what’s going on in the world with what they are wearing,” says Cathal Mcateer. “Our safe world of London is being disrupted more than we have ever experienced it. I feel confident doing this collaboration with the Goss Brothers. It feels right. It’s about the garment and the art. I’m looking forward to these different elements coming together.”
Folk x Goss Brothers pop up shop will be open from July 6th. 11am- 7pm
shop the collection online at www.folkclothing.com
