LFW: Mungo Gurney – Interview

A graduate of Central St Martins, Mungo Gurney is solidly building his way to a very successful career. Not only has he worked with Roberto Cavalli, he has now launched his own label and has brought his first collection to Fashion Week. Oh, and did we forget to mention, makes divine swimwear. All. Year. Round. Warm winter breaks here we come!

Planet Notion: So this is your first collection and you were with Cavalli before that?

Mungo Gourney: Yes, I graduated and I went to work for them for a year and then moved back to London. Did a couple of seasons with the Creative Archives, designing the prints and that went really well because we got stocked in a couple of good boutiques. Since then I’ve been freelance for a year and then decided to launch.

PN: What is the difference when you design for yourself, under your own name?

MG: Oh it’s so different, complete creative freedom which is why I’m doing it. I can just test the water with whatever I want to do. I’m interested in textiles and prints, but it was actually womanswear that I studied so now I’m kind of branching out. Within womenswear, textiles is my forte and that’s what shapes my collection. This season it’s very print led and next season we’re looking at a lot of embroidery, still quite a lot of prints and just very creative approaches to textiles.

PN: You’ve done swimwear as part of your mainline, what was the appeal of that?

MG: When I was at The Creative Archives the people I was with said they’d love to do a print on swimwear and that laid a seed, put an image in my head. So for the past couple of years since I’ve been designing prints I’ve always thought that would work really nicely. There’s also a gap in the market, I don’t think anyone’s doing a ready to wear aesthetic and swimwear. I don’t want one to take away from the other though, I want them to complement each other and I think they do. And it is spring summer, it’s for hot weather, it’s kind of Riviera inspired.

PN: What is the inspiration for this collection?

MG: To start off with I was actually looking at French glass workers in the 1920s: Émile Gallé, Lalique and a few others because they did a beautiful play with colour and used a lot of Japanese illustrations. A lot of Lalique’s motifs were lilies, swans, leaf shapes so a really Art Nouveau influence. I also looked at the cut of the clothing during those times, took simple cylindrical shapes for the tunic dresses and smock dresses but with a modern fit and modern cut.

PN: So has London Fashion Week been a dream or a nightmare for you? How was the run-up?

MG: Definitely a dream, although it can be a bit of both with costumes being late and it being the first season. No, it’s been really good. There’s been a constant flow of people so we shall see how it goes.

PN: What can we expect next from you?

MG: Next season is going to be an interesting one! It’s going to be Mexican wave, a bit of a 70s vibe and 90s hip hop and we’re gonna really approach laser cutting and embroidery, there will still be a lot of modular print and keep the mix of swimwear and ready to wear which works together. So even through A/W we’re gonna do a new line of swimwear, I think we can do two seasons of swimwear, you know people kind of need it all year round in a way. With the hip hop culture there is going to be a bit of humour in there too but it will still be very feminine, still very beautiful.

-Alexa Hall

-Photographer: Robbie Peachey