THE W ORK
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IT R E ALLY I S NI C E , T H AT
using SOME OF the text from the workwear edit from ‘its nice that’, this zine will look into the clothing that people in the creative industry wear, why they do so, and whether it influences the work that they make.
M GH M N I N A N H G U N I C K N JACK CU JAC
W ords b y L i v S iddall p hotogra p hy b y N ina M anandhar
I go to Uniqlo for my socks. I bought some Norse Project ones and they were like 15 quid and I ended up just feeling a bit guilty.
Do you wear the same clothes at work as you do on the weekend? • I think we’re lucky in commercial, arty jobs that we can kind of get away with wearing the same thing. I don’t really have a line between what I wear for work and in my down time.
How many clothes do you buy online? • I actually buy most of my clothes online. Oi Polloi mainly, and sometimes Pegg’s & Son. They all do a similar thing, all these shops that have popped up for guys. There never used to be any “guy” fashion – I used to find it so hard, and I kind of hated how much I’d have to spend in order to not wear stuff from Topman and see everyone else wearing the same thing. I like my clothes to be a tiny bit different and I kind of feel like for a while you had to spend a lot, but recently it’s got a lot more competitive with men’s clothing.
Do you have a favourite brand, anyone you feel who are doing it just right? • Yeah Margaret Howell is wicked. It’s super expensive and I only own two things from there, both of which I got in the sale. I like that it’s unisex, it’s so simple as well. It’s just good. Expensive, but good.
Do you ever buy second hand clothes? • When I was at uni I was fully charity shop, and I still like them. You go into a charity shop and occasionally I see something great and it’s like £20, and maybe it’s even something that a lot of more expensive shops base their clothes on but charge £400. Personally I find it really hard – I don’t have much of an attention span so going through rails in Beyond Retro doesn’t appeal anymore.
Tell me about your jacket • It’s not very warm, it’s more of a spring jacket, as I’m just waiting for spring. It’s from Margaret Howell. I went to the Margaret Howell shop and it was £270, then I came back and I was like, “Oh God. That’s too much. Especially for a thin jacket..” You wanna spend that much money on a coat that’s gonna keep you warm, right? And then I went to Oi Polloi, because I pretty much buy all my clothes from there, it’s a shop up in Manchester. They always select really nice stuff, and I saw it was on sale there for £180. In the corner of the label it said “Cheapskate deal: 20%” and so it ended up being like £150!
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PATTERN VS. ALL
“I think because the work I do is so pattern-based that’s something that I’m naturally attracted to in what I wear.”
Do you dress any differently when you’re working and when you’re not working? • Not really. The main thing is that when I’m working I try and make sure that I actually get dressed. That’s a big part of feeling like I’m at work. I need to be properly dressed and in clothes, not just pyjamas with my hair on top of my head looking like shit. You have to be in work mode.
Do you think it helps creatives to have a style that reflects their work? • I think it just often can’t be helped really. My work is a kind of extension of myself but I don’t think clothes matter that much. I think a lot of people do have their own sense of style and their work often reflects that.
What are you wearing today? • I’m wearing almost all black!
Is that unusual for you? • No it’s not! Half the time I wear these mad clothes and my friends are like, “Are you alright?” Then I went to Copenhagen over the summer and everyone wears black and I thought everyone looked amazing. But I can’t really help myself, so I’ve usually got a bit of pattern. I think because the work I do is so pattern-based that’s something that I’m naturally attracted to in what I wear. Anyway today I’m wearing this jumper from Être Cécile, this skirt is actually from Marks & Spencer, my necklace is from my friend’s shop in Lewes called Popsicle, these earrings are from Jenny Sweetnam and my shoes are from & Other Stories.
Where do you find most of you clothes? • I buy a lot of stuff from Cos and apparently have a bit of an obsession with buying lots of different coloured jumpers. Lots of them are from YMC – if I’ve got the money I love a YMC jumper but they’re fucking expensive. That’s fine though isn’t it? When you’ve done a big project you’ve got to treat yourself sometimes for crying out loud! I do like to look for things with bright patterns. I’ve got this skirt that I love from Whistles that’s bright orange and mad, and I’ve got a few Pakistani dresses from a shop that I used to work in because I liked the fabrics
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“I love going to weddings and looking good and sharp. And my mum loves it. But if I can just not, any other time, then that’s fine by me.”
Does anyone ever comment on what you’re wearing? • Oh all the time! People are like “Why are you wearing shorts? It’s freezing” and I’m like “Yeah! In the 60 seconds it takes me to get to Hoxton Square, but I’m sat in a boiling hot office all day.” I suppose I dress how I want the weather to be. I just need to move to the climate that [works with] how I dress.
What did you used to wear when you were about 16? • I’m 30 now, but back when I was 15 I did an exchange trip at school and I went to Germany and someone gave me a Dog Eat Dog CD, and I got my first pair of baggy trousers and a Fishbone hoodie, and I got that on the second day of the trip and I wore it for the rest of the week and a month after that. I really want to get back into really stupidly big jeans. I used to wear jeans that could fit a 30cm ruler inside them. I was really obsessed with that shape you used to get on snowboarding games where they have really big chunky feet and slender legs.
Tell me about your beloved yellow jacket? • I don’t really spend much money on clothes, I think this is probably the most expensive jacket I’ve ever bought and it was like one hundred and something quid. I bought it one day when I was out and about and realised I didn’t have any pockets, so I wanted to buy a jacket that had some. I was wearing some bright pink shorts and a white T-shirt, so when I tried it on it all just went really well together.
Do you feel better when you are in white? • I can go outside and like, sort of be all in black and weird but I am alone here in my room a lot. Doing freelance I am basically here, wrapped up in my duvet like a burrito, on Tumblr all day talking to my weird friends in Shanghai. Sometimes I have to go to an office and they’ll all be like “Oh I did normal things this weekend, what did you do?” And then I have to explain what Seapunk is to even get on any kind of level of conversation.