A few seasons ago, a buyer at designer Edward Cuming’s Paris showroom said something that stuck with him. “She was putting together a rack and turned to her colleague and said, ‘it feels essential’,” recalled the designer, calling in from Spain. “That word really stuck with me; not essential as in basic, but essential as in it will be worn and worn continuously.”
The idea of wearability and clothes that offer good mileage has become a primary focus of Cuming, who will turn 32 this coming Friday. The Australian-born, Madrid-based designer is now ten seasons in with his eponymous label including this fall 2024 collection, which he is presenting by appointment this week during Paris Fashion Week.
“I think that doing fashion in a capital city that is also not a major fashion capital is the best thing for me,” said Cuming. How does an Australian designer who completed his studies in London end up running a label from Spain? “It’s super lame, but it was love,” Cuming recalled. He met his partner of 13 years, who is Spanish, in Australia, and after a few years going back and forth between the two countries, the designer relocated to Spain after receiving a grant from IED Barcelona to pursue his undergraduate degree through a partnership with the University of Westminster. He left to go to Central Saint Martins to receive an MA in Menswear, but returned soon after. “I was looking for a job after graduation, and the only place I could legally live in Europe as an Australian was Spain,” said Cuming. He had been looking for a role at a brand, but the visa situation made his attempts unfruitful. In Spain, he took on freelance work and started teaching at his alma mater.
But percolating in the background throughout this time was Edward Cuming, the brand. A few months after his graduation from Central Saint Martins in 2019, the British Fashion Council asked Cuming to stage an installation of his graduate collection; which caught the eye of the buyers at Opening Ceremony who ended up placing an order. “It was all really crumpled muslins, and triple washed and dyed and bleached clothes,” said Cuming. Other stores and small collections followed, and Cuming found himself a business owner. Five years in, the designer considers his brand still somewhat under the radar; and in typical IYKYK fashion, he’s stocked at Dover Street Market Paris, 10 Corso Como in Milan, ESSX in New York, and XC237 in Shanghai.
He describes his practice as “intuitive,” and, while hesitant to put words to his aesthetic (“you feel it’s something that’s gonna be written and that just defines you forever!”), “familiar” is one that comes to him quickly. “I’ve always been looking for a sense of softness in things,” he added. He is interested in clothes that are worn, and on people who wear their clothes. “It’s familiar because you’re never wondering what the thing is,” explained Cuming. Take pieces from his latest collection: a satin shirt cut in the shape of a hoodie with its circular hem left unfinished; a silk tunic with rectangular panel cut off from its front bodice, causing the hem to drape like a fancy curtain; a button down shirt has circular appliqués of scrappy swatches of fabric; a pair of inside-out gray sweatpants with a ballooning hem.
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But there is a cheekiness to his work, too; with his playful and vibrant colors balancing the softness and affability of his clothes. He’ll cut frilly ribbons and place them on knits, or fray the edges of a tie and drape the pockets in his shirts. He branded his jeans “CUM jeans,” a play on his last name. “It’s already there, and if people want to interpret it in a different way, that’s their dirty mind and not mine,” said the designer, “but I say that with a wink!”
Still, he is an emotional designer, but rather than romance, his clothes exude a particular sentimentality. His menswear is sensible and cut amply and droopy, a silhouette that Cuming refers to as “soft and pure,” and which he began exploring with his graduate collection. “What is the softest, lightest fabric I can find, or what can we do to a tailored jacket to deprive it of all the aggressive connotations that come with tailoring?” was his original starting point. To this day, this is the Edward Cuming way. “Strip it of all of these things and you’re left with this shell that hits the body in a way that’s interesting.”
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