The Tamesis
Steve O Smith received the Karl Lagerfeld Award at last year’s LVMH Awards. It is a fitting memorial gift to a young designer designed by Delphine Arnault in the name of this great master of art. Lagerfeld was a superb sketcher, and Smith’s own fluid drawing was at the heart of his work.
Smith showed what he could achieve with his money this season, elevating his vivid illustrations closer and closer to high fashion. In terms of inspiration, he said, his starting point was “looking at Otto Dix, Edouard Bourla and Madeleine Vionnet.” Dix painted the decadent side of post-World War I Berlin, British queer artist Burra depicted Harlem nightlife around the same time, and Vionnet invented the bias cut in Paris.
The synchronicity of these influences – “they were all in the late 1920s” – led Smith to embark on a painting spree, transforming sketches of figures into loose interpretations of fashionable dresses and fragile twill slips, as well as residual impressions of waiters, soldiers, managers and drunkards.
What’s new here is that this is the first time Smith has added color to his black-and-white records. His red washes, flecks of pink and brown on peach, were achieved through layers of hand-dyed tulle, with lines cut and superimposed on organza, while Smith’s illustrations suggested freehand bows that were delicately beaded.
From his first season just two years ago, Smith has attracted people willing to commission and wait for art/couture to be made for them. “Loyal customers keep coming back,” he noted. In an interview for the LVMH Prize, he proposed investing in building a team of experts in London to further advance his technology. “So now we’ve assembled this team – an amazing group of cutters, embroiderers and seamstresses. They all come from fashion industry backgrounds,” he adds with a laugh, “and we’re now in a studio that’s not my living room. So it’s a pretty big studio.”
What to do next? Slow fashion is crafted for private clients and is a good niche and business model for the young designer at a difficult time for the wider industry. Being careful with money is also a virtue—an innate discipline for a generation that has had to grow resourceful during the pandemic. “I’ve been tying up LVMH’s money so I’m not going to spend it all at once,” Smith said. So far, he’s been working on lookbooks and private client appointments in London and Paris. Still: the wonder of Steve O Smith’s clothes is their 3D effect. What it would be like to see the gentle bounce of the seat, the flutter of the godets, and the perfect fit of that red-shaded jacket with the movement. One day soon, he really should.
