Philip Ellis, best known for his Brexit-inspired debut line, turns his attention to Agolde
Philip Ellis, the reigning wunderkind of British fashion, has only been in LA since January, but being immersed in a new culture–and a new climate–has already started to rub off on him. “I moved to California and I now wear Ugg boots,” the designer, who recently turned 25, says with mock astonishment over the phone from his studio in Los Feliz. “I’m really living the stereotype. When I was a teenager I wore the most ridiculous gothic clothes and I looked down my nose at all the basic bitches who wore Ugg boots. And now I get it. I take everything back.”
Ellis’s choice of new locale may come as a surprise to the rather large number of people who’ve been following him since his attention-grabbing debut two years ago at the graduate show of the prestigious London art school Central Saint Martin’s. His collection was themed around the Brexit vote, then only weeks away, and he captured a symbolic moment of reckoning over British identity with a riot of references to different–possibly competing–ideas of Britishness, from soccer scarves and punk makeup to headscarves and hoodies. His work since then has remained rooted in UK youth culture history, drawing inspiration from skinheads and the rave-happy ’90s Manchester scene that was going off when he was born nearby in Northern England’s Peak District. A quintessentially British designer like Ellis seems to belong in sunny Los Angeles about as much as the Queen would.
The reasons behind his move to California are equally surprising. Even while putting in time at Vetements and Meadham Kirchhoff, Ellis built his reputation on working outside the fashion industry box, releasing DIY collections and art projects (like a poster zine called Enlarge Your Memories, created alongside frequent collaborators Jamie Shaw and Yann Faucher) that felt more like the work of a punk label then a fashion brand. Now he’s working for rising premium denim brand Agolde, working on jeans destined for Urban Outfitters and East Dane.
The Agolde gig originated as a capsule collection and an editorial collaboration for the label’s luxe branded magazine Eighty-Nine. Initially intended for A/W 18, it was a tightly focused capsule that managed to cover a lot of ground, from jeans (in both cropped and baggy silhouettes) to sweatsuits to a full on zip-up stonewashed denim jumpsuit. The clean lines and breezy color palette read as very Agolde, but if you have a keen eye and the right knowledge of UK music history, you’ll pick up on Ellis’s heavy nods towards the moment in the late ‘80s where British skinheads discovered house music and ecstasy and sort of accidentally invented raving.
“I think statement color is great. The trend is bright and excessive. Neons are really popular again. “
Agolde certainly liked what it saw. Ellis’s capsule collection has been absorbed into its main line, as part of an overall refresh that he’ll be heading up. Part of his mission includes rebooting its menswear collection, culling styles and redefining its audience. “I love menswear,” Ellis says. “I think men’s fashion is more interesting than women’s at the moment.” Still, he’s an interesting choice to head up a men’s line, partly because in his own work he’s never really differentiated between men’s designs and women’s. In editorials and on Instagram he and his female model/muse/friend Suzi Leenaars swap clothes back and forth like slightly mismatched twins. (With his lean frame and runway-ready cheekbones, Ellis is his own best male model.)And while the line sheet for his Agolde capsule (released before Ellis’s gig was upgraded) separated the garments into men’s and women’s, in the accompanying editorial he and Leenaars mix and match like usual. The androgynous quality that Ellis brings to his clothes is refreshingly nonchalant, probably because gender neutrality had already gone mass-market by the time he graduated from Saint Martin’s. In the Agolde capsule it feels less like a keen statement than a clever observation that the way skinhead and raver fashion downplayed gender differences was revolutionary in its own way.
Ellis admits that selling his vision to a mainstream audience might prove to be challenging, but he feels like they might be ready. “I’ve kind of lived in this very cosmopolitan utopia the last few years,” he says, “living in great cities like LA, London and Paris, so I don’t really know the average joe. The men that I know are dressing more asexually. I think gender norms are kind of blurring. Maybe this is a reaction to the current political climate, as an opposition to what’s going on in the world.”
He’d like to encourage men to take the newfound daring he sees and push it even further. For one, he’s a big proponent of bike shorts, which straight men in America have yet to embrace en masse. “Everyone seems to be wearing quite a lot of athleisurewear and yoga pants and stuff,” he notes. “And when you compare men’s athletic gear to women’s, women’s is very form fitting and embraces the female athletic figure, while men’s is just covering everything up.”
“Just put some Lycra shorts on and throw a t-shirt over it,” he explains. “It’s minimal effort, it’s practical, but it’s also just a really strong look.” For warm weather, Ellis also recommends sandals with socks, in part to avoid a trend that he considers a plague. “I think ankle socks are really gross,” he says. “I really think people should just wear socks. And I’m sorry but men shouldn’t subject other people to their feet. They should cover them in nice socks.
“Marc Jacobs says he takes inspiration from things that he thinks are really hideous,” he explains. “I kind of have found myself doing that. Now I wear sock and Crocs and Ugg boots. The things that I find most hideous I eventually find myself weirdly attracted to.” Not all of Ellis’s ideas are as aesthetically radical. One thing he’d like to see more of this summer is simply more color. “I think statement color is great,” he says. “The trend is bright and excessive. Neons are really popular again. Men should embrace that, especially with t-shirts and graphics and kind of easy, wearable pieces.”
And with his relocation he’s started drawing inspirations from skaters, a youth subculture that Americans are more familiar with than skinhead ravers. “There’s a really amazing store which I am quite obsessed with called Virgil Normal,” he explains. “It’s on the corner of Virgil Avenue and Normal Avenue. It’s a menswear boutique. It’s small, independent, and it’s run by a stylist and her boyfriend. It’s like a men’s skate shop. They stock more independent skate brands and also do their own prints and t-shirts.”
If Ellis has some ambitious goals for his work, he also has a proven knack for making things happen. After all, he managed to attract international press off a student show, and was handed the steering wheel for a fairly well established brand a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday. And while the viral success of his Brexit collection came from youthful passion and the perfect crystallization of one brief moment in history, these days he works with a measured confidence that suggests he won’t burn out early. Basically, he’s the kind of person who can suggest you try out bicycle shorts and get you to actually consider it, even if only for a moment.
Watching Ellis jump from Instagram and DIY projects to the bigger stage that comes with working with Agolde is like seeing a favorite punk band get signed to a major label. (Or at least a successful but still hip indie.) But it’s just as likely that he’ll get the brand and its audience to adapt to the quirks of his vision that makes it special, rather than the other way around.
After all, he managed to make the move from England to LA without much trouble. “I mean I’ve had to switch up my accent slightly to pronounce to-MAH-to like to-MAY-to when I’m ordering sandwiches and stuff,” he says. “But aside from that it’s been a quite easy transition.”