When you’re traveling to a place that you’re unfamiliar with, it helps to have a guardian angel watching over you. Showing outside of London for the first time, Craig Green had his team of guardian angels with him—his family.
Both parents, his godfather and even his niece (whose mother Stephanie Green, works with Craig Green, and who has never missed one of his shows) made the trip to Florence. If only more parents understood the importance of being there for your child, instead of blindly keeping them in school for the sake of it; but I digress.
For the spring/summer 2019 show, Green worked on the idea of protection—figuratively, not literally—focusing on the uniform of nurses, caregivers, cleaners and postmen; that is, hard-working people who do their job well and are guardian angels in the life of others.
Surgical scrubs were translated into pastel coloured monochromatic tops with wide-legged ankle-length trousers, and finished with contrast cord detailing—a signature of Craig Green.
He also updated his iconic workwear jackets by producing a softer version printed with the texture of quilts, accessorised with soft flowing satin fabrics draping off its hems.
The show was further elevated with sculptures made in collaboration with artist David Curtis-Ring. The result was human-shaped silhouettes worn by models down the runway. After the show, Green said of the collaboration: "At the moment the shot was taken, the outline of another woman behind her created a kind of halo effect around her body. We loved positive ideas of an angel or a halo but we also loved the darker side too—this idea that you’re being followed and that it also looked like the chalk outline of a body at a crime scene. On one side it's a protective aura and on the other, it's death."
Another pleasant surprise was the sneaker collaboration with Nike. The Epic Reach Flyknit sneaker is reinterpreted with his signature cords. The collaboration also marks the first time that the Flyknit fabrics were used to make garments. Green translated them into colourful structured panelled trousers and jumpers.
While the state of the world might be in upheaval, it's always heartening to know that menswear has a guardian angel looking over it. And his name is Craig Green.
