Gareth Pugh is a renowned British fashion designer known for his avant-garde and boundary-pushing designs.
With a background in costume design, Pugh’s collections often feature theatrical elements such as exaggerated silhouettes, sculptural shapes, and unconventional materials.
In an interview with The Talks, he speaks on feeling out of place and how much he likes the feeling. See interview below:
Gareth, would you call yourself an outsider in today’s fashion industry?
I certainly don’t feel like at home! I feel very much part of the actual thing, but not of the circus around it. Specifically in environments like the Met Ball. It’s such a foreign space. I come from a small town in north east of England, and I just find it very odd and sometimes comical that I find myself in these situations. It’s like an out of body experience I guess, and it’s not an experience I enjoy at all. But I do like the idea that I definitely feel out of place there.
How come?
I feel it’s important to maintain that notion of feeling on the edge of something, on the periphery. It’s a choice with regards to the work that I do — it’s not a crowd pleaser, it’s not meant to please everybody. It’s quite a niche thing and I know that, and I’m very comfortable with the space that my work inhabits. I embrace the idea of an outsider society because while the establishment keeps very much to itself, the peripheral around it, these amazing people and ideas that don’t necessarily fit with the mainstream notion of how things should be — that’s where the energy is. That’s where the ideas lie.
“The work that you do, the decisions that you make, I think all of those things can feed into defining who you are.”
Is that feeling something that has always been part of your identity?
Yes, for sure! I mean, being a gay guy interested in fashion growing up in the town that I come from, I never really fit in there. It’s not like a sad thing! It’s very much something that I’ve used to my benefit, it’s something that I’ve always tried to embrace, because there’s that idea that people can put across their stage persona in their work life, and they have this very different personal persona — kind of like the idea of being the best person that you can be, or just the truest person. But the work that you do, or the decisions that you make, I think all of those things can feed into defining who you are.
Rick Owens said that it’s also important to have people protect and support you, because it’s impossible to do this alone.
Well, when I was still at college I met Judy Blame and we very quickly became close. He’d call himself a cheerleader, but he was really like a mother figure to me. He really supported me and helped me out, and what he represented was very much this championing of outsiders: these people who he really liked to elevate and celebrate. Louise Wilson at Central Saint Martins was also like this but she was telling everyone their work was shit. (Laughs) “The truth hurts but also — you can do better.” And it’s not born out of her being a total cunt, it’s born out of the fact that she wants you to do better than you think you can.
Interview Credit: The Talks