september 2023
THE LIFE AND STYLE OF PETER JOHN
The former soldier turned fashion designer makes dedication and rigour look immeasurably cool.
If you were to follow the Derby born creatives Instagram, you’d see that he and his friends host dinner together near daily, pasted quasi-candidly across their accounts; happenings lit aesthetically chiaroscuro style in the way only a group of like-minded artists and designers could. Steak Tatar and croutons paired with garlic butter bathed roasted asparagus and broccoli is a common sight, as are Mediterranean pasta dishes, though Pete tries to limit his carbs nowadays.
What precedes food is either running or hardy strength training sessions. Pete is a core member of a fitness brotherhood and brand, UVU training club, for which he has been deemed a “muse” according to CBO Jonny Wilson in a recent interview. “Track-O-Tuesdays” was a tongue-in-cheek take on Taco-Tuesdays for one of his hosting nights he tells me. As the name suggests, he and his compadres would train at their local track before sitting down together to break bread, or Tacos. Sometimes his guests will consist of just two friends, and other times more than ten, “when you’ve got eleven people turning up it gets pretty expensive”, he laughs in remembrance.
The designers career change is a recent one, with his namesake label Studio Peter John launching just this year, supported by his social circle of fellow designers Cole Buxton, Jonny Wilson and jeweler Henry Goodfellow.
“Good friends make a good dinner party” Pete tells me. Marco Pierre White once said, “The most important aspect of any restaurant is the environment you sit in”, which feels particularly applicable here. Our Lifestyles aren’t just about what we do, or how what we’re doing looks, but about who we surround ourselves with. Sharing food with the people we love, crafting your environment with good friends, and doing so often seems to me to be a great lifestyle.
“I was talking to Henry, and I said we don’t host that much, do we? And he said... well yeah, we do”.
SCENTING SPACES
Curators, production designers, and performance artists are eager to incorporate the multi-sensory element of fragrance to their craft. Artist John Foley talks all things olfactory with Jonty Race.
Perched on grey stone steps, on an equally grey day in London’s industrial-chic Granary square: Conversation with Scent Artist John Foley is anything but drab. Chelsea’s 63-year-old man about town, the multi-hyphenate creative is the co-author of bespoke perfumery brand S/JF Narrative, a professional model, and former costume designer at the English National Opera and the Royal College of Music. Foley recently scented Campbell Addy’s ‘I Love Campbell’ exhibition at 180 Studios, and he’s due to work with designer Ross Palmer for his MA fashion show at the Royal College of Art.
“I kind of see perfume as a
self-portrait”.
Growing up on his family’s farm in Ireland’s rural County Cork provided Foley with an endless source of olfactory inspiration, “my favourite smell is of wet earth in winter.” He tells me, “I love the smell of wet animals” and “Chamomile, we were a dairy farm, and it grew in kind of wet places you know where we washed out the milking machines. It loves damp. And so that for me is a complete heritage smell. You know it’s instant, takes me back there”. He jokes – through soft plumes of Benson and Hedges Blue cigarette smoke – that all perfumers smoke because they love the smell, “I suppose it’s how I punctuate time,” he adds, flicking back his characteristic white curls. He is sat reservedly, dressed in beautifully layered classic cutaway shirts, one floral and one white, a grey jacket marbled with black inky details burrowed or gifted from a friend, and overdyed vintage military trousers. His connections are as eclectic as his wardrobe, acquired through his years of experience working as a costume designer for theatre and film. Moving to London from Ireland in his 20s, Foley began an apprenticeship in costume design in 1987 at the Players Theatre, an industry he’d worked in for thirty years until 2017 when he decided to focus on his scent art.
The incorporation of scent into spaces is becoming a bigger thing says Foley: “I was very lucky because I was very early in on it.” Though his brand S/JF Narrative has a commercial edge, his work of late is less concerned with wearable perfume and more with scenting happenings – by that I mean fashion shows, exhibitions, and performances. “It’s very much a rising thing to add another element, adding something else subtle. You get soundtracks at exhibitions more so now than ever before, so bringing in smell is another way to go. It gets people in. You can see so much online but really if you want to see the artwork you’ve got to be in front of it. Having a scent track is another element that you can bring into that” he tells me.
“I thought minimalism in a
huge space. Let's do that.”
A recent “nose-job” for Foley was Campbell Addy’s ‘I Love Campbell’ exhibition, a beautiful collection of the image makers most igniting work to date. “He got in touch with my studio and explained that he was going to have his first solo show, and would I scent it. He pretty much gave me a free hand, but we discussed it an awful lot, The 180 space is vast, It's a huge space. I thought minimalism in a huge space. Let's do that.” Foley created two scents for the show, one based on the space as exhibition goers entered which was a what he described as a golden green smell, inspired by “lying under a tree on a bright summer’s day, and looking up into the leaves. The colours are changing, and you get the flick of golden and green”. The other was more floral.
Though he has no formal training in perfumery “I knew how it was physically made for a long time” he tells me. Using 18th century methods and a trial-and-error approach, Foley has been able to pursue his passion for all things scent. “It's all to do with body's modelling, perfume, the costume stuff” he muses, “I kind of see perfume as a self-portrait”.
DECEMBER 2023
9 QUESTIONS WITH RANKIN
The evening is creeping in on an increasingly busy Soho, London – I’ve already been stopped by a group of lavalier mic brandishing beauty Tik-Tok creators, and the ever-chatty Hare Krishnas. Opposite me is the world-renowned photographer: Rankin. We’re sat in tall directors chairs in the midst of a pop-up studio space for the latest itteration of ‘Rankin Live’ at 47 Carnaby street. It would be snobbish to judge someone of their music taste alone, but it can certainly tell us something of their outlook. Being that Rankin is the co- founder of the cult-magazine Dazed & Confused , a publication so intertwined with music, I was curious to hear about his taste. The following is an interview covering music, celebrities, and the current state of creativity.
Rankin: At the end of the shoot I’ll go to Elton John tiny dancer, at the beginning of the shoot or if I’m feeling a bit weird I’ll go to Street Fighting Man by The Rolling Stones. There are things that I forget that I like – I was listening to Embrace the other day and I was like I really like them why don’t I listen to them more. But you know again I’m quite diverse in my music taste.
J: Do you listen to a lot of music in the studio?
R: Yes, the studio is just music. If someone’s listening to something we just generally carry on listening to it, It’s not very intentional. But a lot of people when they’re having their photo taken, especially famous people, have playlists or we ask them specifically ‘what would you like to listen to?’ With models – when we do fashion or beauty – music can help them dance a little.
J: Which model has had the most unusual taste?
R: Heidi Klum has got the most unusual music taste because it’s so broad. Her husband is a musician, and her ex-husband was a musician, and she loves singing and she makes music herself. Her appreciation is really broad and because of that quite surprising – she’ll be listening to a Tiesto track, but then she’ll really love I don’t know U2. The coolest music taste is probably Suiki Waterhouse, she always liked really good music. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley uses music the most in terms of how she models. She really models with the music as a kind of catalyst.
J: What about the musicians?
R: The weirdest people I’m not going to actually mention because it’s a bit rude, but when people listen to their own music that’s weird. That’s fucking weird. You’re like really? Robbie Williams did that once and I was like yeah of course but I like his music so. I’ve had bands come in and all they listen to is their albums on repeat and it’s like wow. Weird, weird.
J: Where are you at your most creative?
R: On a walk, with my dogs, but being bored. Without question that’s where I come up with all my ideas. Without question.
J: And where are you at your most relaxed?
R: On a walk, with my dogs, thinking about ideas.
J: Good answer, a piece of wisdom you live by?
R: I really believe you need to have the space in which to allow yourself to be creative. The endless twenty-four hours doesn’t work for creativity. One of the saddest things about the generations after mine is that progressively this idea of always being on has become a thing and it doesn’t work.
J: A piece of wisdom you’ve picked up recently?
R: To trust my gut as much as I did when I was younger. I put too much doubt into my own gut.
January 15th 2024
JOHN ALEXANDER SKELTON AW2024
WORDS: JONTY RACE
IMAGES: LONNY SPENCE, COURTESY OF JOHN ALEXANDER SKELTON
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great – Barts the Great for short – is a time capsule nestled just a stone’s throw from the Barbican. On a dark Tuesday evening the bitingly cool air enveloping its grand Norman architecture is latticed with murmurs of excitement. It is to stage John Alexander Skelton’s latest and most gothic collection to date.
Inside, the thick aroma of incense, that almost indescribably ‘Churchy’ smell, and the sweet spices of mulled wine permeated the air. Off went the lights, signalling the start of the evening’s proceedings. The beautifully eerie, and skin tinglingly soulful cries of Dreams Made Flesh – a track from This Mortal Coils 1984 Album It’ll End In Tears – cut through the darkness. Skelton’s cast of characters – a description which feels more befitting than models – emerged from the wings of the church illuminated solely by the candles they offered for light; set in brass holders. They circled around the transepts with elegant and purposeful steps, before arriving at the choir turned runway. One couldn’t help but feel at the centre of some century’s old ritual, awed by the sublime beauty of space, the music and the spectacle.
And this, it seems, was exactly Skelton’s intention. The York born designer rooted his collection in his favourite This Mortal Coil tracks: “It’s my emotional reaction to the music,” he tells me in the church cloister made backstage dressing area. “I always thought it would be an amazing backdrop to a show. I came in this church about six or seven years ago coincidentally, and I heard someone doing a choir practice. The sound was just absolutely amazing and I thought if I ever did a show which was set to music specifically, then this would be the place to do it.”
The show’s second phase saw a repeat of the walk with the lights on, soundtracked by more of This Mortal Coils divine gothic music. Models looked as though striding straight from Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, or any of their other works for that matter, with some looks featuring jewelled crown-like headpieces and others including earrings and pendants by collaborator and friend Slim Barrett. Peppered throughout the collection – across shawls and rollnecks in particular –were glimmers of silver as though a map of some distant night sky. The colours, Skelton tells me, were derived from 15th century Flemish paintings. Black, a symbol of power, was prolific, with dual tones of maroon, claret and a splash of lime green.
Although Skelton rejects motifs, the prominence of button fastenings across his collections hasn’t gone unnoticed. Creating beauty from utility seems to be a signature. Looks include a lime green two-piece ensemble with flap pockets combining the extravagance of the 18th century macaroni’s with military functionality, a roomy mandarin collared pinstripe suit with excellent flow, and closing the show, a dry- waxed cotton long-coat in brilliant red – synched at the waist in the fashion of a trench coat or smock – with Skelton’s characteristic button detailing. The collections silhouettes had an ecclesiastical feel, with long flowing garments like cassocks. Elbow length leather opera gloves, in black of course, brought a touch of the feminine, though the entire collection could be genderless. In returning to stricter codes of dress, John Alexander Skelton found fluidity.
“The future is looking rather grim” and “Decisions lie with stupid men” are lyrics from Skelton’s favourite track featured: Tarantula. With this collection Skelton lead us from the gloom of mounting crises around the globe to a mystic gothic liminal space, by candlelight.