Saul Nash reconnected with one of his earliest memories to bring a 30th anniversary celebration of the UK Garage scene to life on his catwalk. “My older brother was an MC in clubs, starting from when I was about five. He was practicing all the time”, he grinned. “I remember our house used to shake! So this season looks at club culture, through the lens of myself. I remember once he snuck me in the rave where they were all going kind of back-to-back on the mic, and I remember just how people would dress up to go out. The flyers always said ‘No hoods, no hats, no trainers’, and for me that was really exciting; how would you navigate that, to dress up sportswear to get in? “
Hence: Dresscodes became the name of the collection, demonstrated in another of the innately brotherly runway performances with which Nash lights up the London show scene. Nash’s dancer friends mixed with Garage royalty MC Bushkin from Heartless Crew and the photographer Ewen Spencer, who documented the emergence of the scene (a hero of the designer). The soundtrack, mixed by CKTRL, had Envy on the mic and featured the track “Dubble-Up” by RJ East—Nash’s brother.
The dresscodes, though? Nash’s concern is to elevate his LUAS brand, to keep it moving through new material developments as well as the physical movement—enhancing properties inherent in his garments. The most visible symbol of the Garage theme were his signature compression knits, woven with black-and-white images of dancing bodies as if caught by a thermal imaging camera, which were also printed across the legs of nylon pants.
The cleverest of his thoughts can only be seen in close-up, though—a collaboration with Sebago. “I used to emulate my brother by wearing loafers. Now these ones are customized with Vibram soles.” An elegantly-coded meeting between classic formality and the trainer world which surely has cult potential.
Nash is known, respected and loved for the way he participates in so many cultural communities, creative practices, and collegiate attitude toward helping other London designers raise their games. The fact that he’s a personality brimming with positive energy made it also seem so right that he launched a collaboration with Smiley with this collection. It’s subtly done, black on black. “I didn’t want to do something bright with it, because these are dark times,” he said “But I am a positive person; I wanted to show people that despite everything, yeah, a smile could still help sometimes.”
