Craig Green returned to the catwalk for the first time in two years this season, off calendar and from his studio in the outskirts of London. Following the passing of his father late last year, Green delivered a collection that conveyed the abrupt maturation that a ceaseless and indifferent world requires; it called to mind an excerpt from Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther: “And so I go my fearful way betwixt heaven and earth, and all their active forces; and all I can see is a monster, forever devouring, regurgitating, chewing and gorging.” Green’s work reflects a young man facing the weight of the world, scraping together a sense of security with whatever is at hand. In this collection: ponchos made of handkerchiefs and bibs printed with childish symbols of fire trucks and tractors; leather jackets pieced together with protective shooting patches; your old man’s flannel tucked away in the closet for years. In suggesting safety and comfort, these offerings are more than enough to shape an adequate perspective of menswear. But the crucial component of Green’s makeshift masculinity is uncertainty: there’s a weariness, a fear of the unknown. At any moment, the hard shell could crack open and reveal a boyish innocence. This persistent examination of masculinity, fraught with tension between youthful naivete and pragmatic maturity, is grounded in a completely novel perspective on clothing that firmly distinguishes Green from his contemporaries in menswear.
This sense of protection is further driven by Green’s use of unconventional materials typically reserved for more functional contexts. Sometimes it’s as simple as lacing together two pieces of tarp through grommets at the shoulders and wearing it as a poncho. Other times, the decontextualization is more striking: for his Fall 2020 collection, there were sets of jackets and pants made with the rubber of life rafts and inflatable vests (seemingly functional in case of aquatic emergency), followed by tent-like structures of venetian blinds and printed sheer fabric. Another example is the vibrant ‘papel picado’ (“punched paper”) flag-like garments inspired by Mexican folk art from the Spring 2020 collection.
Each collection from Green is based around the principles of function and protection. Despite the lofty concepts presented throughout his work, Green designs entirely functional workwear. Within this subgenre of menswear, he’s steadily developed a signature uniform: quilted chore jackets, raincoats, and straight-leg trousers are the core offerings season-to-season. The sense of community that the uniform provides is another form of shelter: in an interview with Tim Blanks, Green said, “That kind of protection aspect is something I’ve always been interested in, but I think that also kind of links back to the idea of uniforms, because they’re protective in a way that… you become part of a group when you wear a uniform. And that idea of being part of something is protective in some way.”
Green’s design process is informed by an approach to fashion design as a mechanic to an engine, or an architect to a home. This treatment of clothing as a mechanism allows Green to reduce menswear to smaller components and piece it back together. Structural elements like straps, ties, rope, and industrial fabrics are the nuts and bolts of his design language. References to geometry and pattern schematics appear in various collections, like the apron prints from Spring 2019 and grids from Spring 2020. Recurring abstract wooden sculptures and mechanical structures turn the human body into part of a larger, more complex machine. Yet Green’s true genius is his symbolic language of masculinity. As a medium, fashion is rooted in semiotics. Menswear particularly contains distinct, rigid codes compared to womenswear; the set of available symbols is far more limited. Where Green demonstrates mastery of his craft is the way he deconstructs and rearranges these symbols to create a system that, rather than make broad declarations, suggests trace notions of masculinity that reach into the collective unconscious. He forays into the nebulous realm of childhood and adolescence, when the world was illuminated by possibility and coated with the gloss of naivete, and there were knights and samurai and warriors, and the next great quest lay waiting in the woods.
But we age; reality sets in. Careers and relationships solidify, our parents become old, friends get married and start families. It feels like only a couple years ago that you were just entering a world where everything under the sun was within reach. Navigating this matrix requires a shell, some kind of protection against the pressures and responsibilities of the external world. And so, we craft an identity the best we can, piecing together notions of maturity and resolve. We look to the established symbols, but there’s no roadmap, no manual. Craig Green possesses a keen ability to convey these subtle precarities of masculinity and maturity. The architectural structures that he builds through clothing and sculpture are secure and protective, yet simultaneously delicate. At any moment, the strings that hold a quilted jacket together or ropes that bind a heavy tarp could unravel. Underneath the facade of protection, there is a fragility in Green’s clothes that reflect the uncertainty of crafted identity. The excess of functionality, like bags made in a rubber factory that makes anesthetic pumps, or giant, enveloping parkas layered with down vests, reflects the compartmentalization we use to maintain composure.
The collections of Craig Green feel like tribes of misfits embarking on a journey, setting out for the great unknown. If the boy from Where the Wild Things Are invited other kids to the island, they might eventually come to the same sartorial conclusions as Green. There is a boyish curiosity with mechanisms, systems, and how things work that informs a raw and instinctive use of materials in his clothing: if a tent can keep the rain away, just take it apart and make it into a raincoat. Green conjures memories of unzipping a sleeping bag and running around the woods, wearing it as a cape– memories of zip-off pants being completely novel inventions. These nostalgic sentiments of childhood are deeply personal and evoke strong emotional responses; they remind us of a time when the world was wide open, before the constrictions of societal expectations and roles dampened the soul. And so, the intricate symbolism of Green’s Spring 2025 collection: the raw safety of jackets reconstructed from layers and layers of leather scraps, or leather belts stacked like a corset around the waist that were later slashed and splayed, reflecting the fragility of conventional stability. There was innocence in the tablecloth shirts and ponchos with simplistic figures of fire trucks and tractors; a naive sincerity in sweaters and knits thrown on top of each other, like a boy late for school trying to dress himself for winter. The show concluded with frayed tapestries, hand-woven with vivid depictions of florals and the raw beauty of the big blue sky. Craig Green invites us to rediscover something we left behind when it was time to ‘grow up and be a man.’ The world is a scary place; but Green’s radical vision of menswear equips us with the armor to face whatever lies ahead.
