Craig Green Reveals a New Moncler Genius Collection: ‘Everything We Were Thinking About Was Linked to Nature’
Out this week, Craig Green’s latest collection in collaboration with Moncler’s Genius project was made a little differently. He usually commutes to Milan monthly; this time he was restricted to only one visit. With no physical presentation possible, he had to consider how to deliver the message of the collection through photography rather than an arrangement of space. The result is striking: two fantastic images of his new, rune-like symbol for the brand, which was transformed into two rafts and then shot from above. The collection itself, meanwhile, was shot on models also wearing some of the Leonardo-esque engineered superstructures that have long been a distinct element in Green’s articulations of the worn. We checked in for a catch-up to learn how he has been navigating the perilous waters of now.
Luke Leitch: Back in 2019, you revealed that your collections tended to be conceived of as groups of three, and that generally each one expressed a cycle of past, present, and future. Has that structure been affected by the disruption of 2020 and 2021?
Craig Green: I’m still thinking that way. But everything is shifted around now. The way that we show, the way that we present, and even the time that we show all seems to be up in the air at the moment.
Does that altered structure in turn alter the work?
Definitely. I mean, it’s definitely changed the way that we work and also the way that I think about it. In one way, I’m desperate to go back—I mean, I know people say that they don’t want to go back to the way it was, but in some ways, I do want to go back, back to doing a show, having an event, and seeing people. That kind of interaction with other humans, even just seeing people at our show and talking about the work in person, I don’t think you can ever replace it. I guess I’m a traditionalist in that way, even though I’m not very traditional in others.
You once said in order to make something futuristic it needs to appear timeless or beyond time. Maybe I’m wrong, but the graphic shape that this Moncler collection is constructed around looks like it could be some ancient hieroglyph representing an abstract human form…
What’s interesting about it is that different people see it differently. Some people see a platypus, some people see a frog, and some people see this strange human. It started from the monogram. There is a jacket [in the collection] that has a kind of twisted monogram, almost like an allover pattern rather than a centralized graphic. That came from the actual Moncler logo, and we wanted this collection to grow out from that. We were also looking at a lot of mountaineering ropes and knots used for safety. I love the concept of something that works perfectly and is beyond updating: It just works and requires no reinvention. I guess you could also say it’s maybe kind of Celtic, or Nordic.
You shot that shape in these beautiful raft photographs. What was the rationale behind those?