Claire Barrow: The London Designer You Need to Know
All photography by: Jamie Stoker
Clothes are akin to a canvas for British designer Claire Barrow. From the creative chaos of her home studio in London, Barrow creates clever DIY staples that are marked out by a painterly aesthetic she calls “neoprimitive.” Wearing mannish trousers of her own design and a T-shirt that reads “same same but different” — a statement confirmed by a punkish Louise Brooks bob — Barrow cuts a lean figure. Her dark eyes flash beneath gold vintage glasses as she clears a place to sit on the leopard-print sofa amidst the buzzing melee while her boyfriend plays eerie ambient sounds behind the decks.
Though it’s just two days before her London Fashion Week presentation, which she showed Sunday, Barrow is preternaturally calm. “We’ve already shot the look books and made a series of films, so we’re all set,” she says, playing with the “Bad Woman” badge that’s pinned to her chest. “It’s nice and relaxed, but it feels a bit weird.” For Fall 2016, Barrow blurs the boundaries between art and fashion still further, with an exhibition-style outing at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts titled “The Retro-Spective.” Alongside the eclectic clothes, Barrow will display a series of short films and artworks that survey her own archive. “This collection is all about history,” she says of her retroactive theme. “As a society, we are constantly referencing and looking back at different eras. Subculture feels like it’s at a bit of a standstill. I want to ask the question: What is new anymore?”
The answer begins presumably with the giant gowns that are currently hanging from a makeshift rail on the other side of the studio. These vast couture confections are crudely stitched from sections of canvas once the size of theater sets, and decorated with a menagerie of phantasmagoric figures from throughout time. These enchanting gowns are destined to go on display at M.Goldstein, the Hackney gallery where Barrow is represented as an artist and where this spring she will open a solo of her works on canvas.
This season, the enterprising 25-year-old designer has also produced a 10-piece collection of fine knitwear sweaters and dresses created in collaboration with the British brand John Smedley. “It’s a nice way of getting the artwork into more wearable pieces,” concedes Barrow as she wraps her frame in an oversize jacquard shawl inscribed with something akin to Greek and Roman figures. There are evening-length gloves and leg warmers too, with collegiate doodles like “I Love 2016” and “Miniskirts Forever.” Barrow has even carved a clay bustier, complete with protruding nipples, though its real-world functionality is still up in the air. “It’s fantastical and theatrical,” says Barrow of the divergent collection, which also features gauzy froufrou skirts, prairie dresses, and a silk kimono whose naïve brushstrokes recall Picasso’s ceramics. “The important thing to remember is that it’s not historically accurate,” she deadpans in her Middlesbrough patter. “It’s all in my head.”
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