Community, Craft and Culture

Menswear designer Nicholas Daley has always used his label to support and champion musicians and artists. He tells us why it’s more important than ever that his upcoming NOW Gallery exhibition does the same

How do you ensure that your London Fashion Week show – in a Covid-free world when such things can happen - is up there with the most-wanted tickets on the schedule? You need to nail the clothes, obviously; in the case of menswear designer Nicholas Daley, that’s a coolly clever blend of quietly subversive tailoring, colourful utilitarian staples and traditional British knits and crafts. But getting the music right is crucial, too, and that’s something that Daley has down to a fine art. His most recent show back in January starred a live soundtrack by London-based musicians Rago Foot, Kwake Bass and Wu-Lu; the previous season, jazz group Sons of Kemet not only played, but walked the runway while doing so. And then there are the parties. “I feel the afterparties are just as significant as my shows,” says Daley. “Obviously the shows are about being a fashion designer and having a business, but I think the community and the energy that you create through music is just as important because, for me, garments and clothing are the glue to stick things together. I’m using my fashion brand as a way to bring in many different worlds and creatives.”

Those shows, and the collections too, have given him enough fashion standing to be more than enough to carry him through an era when the industry is, by necessity, more digital than physical. It’s five years since Leicester-born Daley, 30, founded his eponymous label and, since then, he’s earned himself a dedicated following and an impressive roster of international stockists, as well as a sought-after place on the shortlist of this year’s prestigious LVMH prize. He’s a prolific collaborator, too, creating capsules with big-name brands like Fred Perry and Adidas, as well as enlisting a rolling cast of emerging artists, illustrators, photographers and musicians to work on his collections.

He credits his parents, Jeffrey and Maureen, for both his deep-seated love of music and his drive to use it to build communities. The couple met in 1970s Dundee, where his mother grew up and his Jamaican father was stationed with the Royal Marines, and for four years they ran a reggae club together. “To be honest I didn’t pay that much attention to it until my girlfriend DJ and producer Nabihah Iqbal interviewed my parents for a show on NTS Radio and said, ‘Your parents are so cool!’” says Daley. “My sister and I had seen all the memorabilia that they had kept, but we never appreciated and understood what they did. They did it when there wasn’t any social media; they used to book bands and have them come all the way up to Scotland not knowing if they were going to turn up, and they dealt with a lot of abuse – it wasn’t easy. But I think them distilling that idea of bringing people together through music and the power of music passed on to me.”

That memorabilia – the original club night t-shirt; a shirt that his dad wore first in the military and then in the club; family photos and more – will play a starring role in Daley’s upcoming exhibition at the NOW Gallery, Return to Slygo. Like everything that Daley works on, the exhibition is deeply personal, as well as highlighting the three things at the heart of his label: community, craftsmanship and culture. So, alongside lookbooks, mood boards and materials from his studio, you’ll find images and films charting the evolution of his collections: a totemic speaker stack surrounded by brightly coloured rugs made from upcycled selvedge yarns by a group of Leicestershire knitters; a film celebrating his family’s heritage of knitting and craft; and the windows of the gallery will be wrapped in a colourful mural, designed by illustrator Gaurab Thakali, of a crowd featuring everyone from Daley’s parents to legendary DJ Don Letts. Even the name of the exhibition, Return to Slygo, is a nod to his heritage: IMan SLYGo was the name of his dad’s sound system, and there are villages called Sligo in both Jamaica and Ireland, where each side of his family have their roots.

“My brand’s Nicholas Daley, I didn’t call it XYZ,” he says. “It’s kind of like, this is me, this is my world, this is the language I speak, this is my community. Sometimes it does feel quite draining because obviously I do put a lot of myself out there, but at the same time I feel so blessed because I’m able to do something that I really believe in. I work for myself and I have the opportunity to do something positive.” Right now, that means trying to do his bit to champion the culture that he’s so passionate about; he’s just launched a music grant with Fred Perry and is reaching out to local community groups. “I’ve always had really strong values and things I wanted to focus on. I’ve tried not be one dimensional and to be diverse with the creative outlets within the brand,” he says. “Over the last few months with the pandemic, I’ve been looking at the landscape and thinking about what I can do on an individual basis to help and promote things that I feel are really significant. I think that the NOW Gallery exhibition will be an extension of that: celebrating and supporting all the things that I love during a time of great difficulty.”