Husam El Odeh Is Designing Jewelry for the “New Man”
In the court of the Sun King etiquette was codified and dress was sumptuous. Male courtiers had free range to peacock about in richly embroidered cutaways, breeches, and red-heeled shoes. Today, we are daily witnessing the cracking up of long established customs, and the emergence of new ones. There’s a new generation of men who are abandoning formality in favor of fashion—be they hypebeasts, neo-preps, or wannabe cowboys (many of whom seemed to have been corralled at Pitti Uomo). Watching, analyzing, and reacting to these changes is the artist and jeweler Husam El Odeh.
Born in Germany to parents of Lebanese and Palestinian origins, El Odeh, 43, came to jewelry through art, “exchanging the canvas for the body,” as he puts it. El Odeh was the recipient of the British Fashion Council’s Emerging Talent Award for Accessories in 2010; several seasons ago he met and became professionally and personally involved with the Swedish menswear designer Per Götesson after being introduced by Fashion East’s Lulu Kennedy. “Per was looking for someone to create jewelry,” the designer relates. “He came to my studio with some shells and we smoked lots of cigarettes (some of which made it into the first collection as pins). We connected almost instantly on a tactile level.”
Together the pair are imagining a nuanced and decorative approach to menswear that involves using familiar materials in unexpected ways. Götesson’s supersized jeans, for example, look fresh at the same time that their draping has a rave-meets-Old Masters quality. El Odeh’s assemblages are piquant, and in at least one case, prescient. Alongside a photo of his broken commemorative plate crockery pin showing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex the designer wrote: “Seems I foresaw the future ... [throw-back] SS19 @pergotesson.”
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It’s the future of masculinity—a story that’s in the process of being written—that is El Odeh’s preoccupation. “Being a man is often about navigating expectations,” says the designer, who subverts them with work that tests gender boundaries and assigns value to everyday objects, putting them in settings that require they be seen in new and unexpected ways.
Here El Odeh talks us through his process and shares his thoughts on men and adornment.
When and how did you know you wanted to design jewelry?
I initially started as a painter, in fact I still make illustrations for some projects. My work was always centered around the body and in a way it was a quite natural transition to move on to jewelry. In fact I felt my work being placed on the body and worn gave it a much more intimate and immediate relationship with my audience and clients. I still love the fact that people interact with my work on such an immediate and tactile level.
How do you and Per work together?
We live together these days and the initial ideas often evolve out of everyday experiences and things we observe about each other. Last season started with a blackbird nest in the jasmine bush outside of our garden window, which we got really obsessed with. It became a symbol of accumulating things and making a home from the things that surround you. In the show they became silver wire nests and branches with objects like keys, lighters, and the odd semi-precious stone woven into them. These things flow into the narrative that Per has already developed and often become symbols or poetic functions within the collection. We also do some research together, like going to a museum or looking at objects we have or find. I often feed into the narrative, like with the collection we just showed. I introduced Joe Orton’s work to Per and we went to the library where Orton had defaced books, which (maybe not entirely coincidentally) is right by where we live. We often discuss what it is that we respond to and how it relates to navigating the world as a man. I then tend to try and identify materials and objects that I know I can make something interesting from and that will translate well into pieces.
