Now that founder Samuel Ross has exited A-Cold-Wall to design his next chapter, longtime colleagues William Slocombe (design director) and Liam Hassimi (brand director) are overseeing the line. The first thing you saw when walking into their Milan presentation this morning was a series of screens which displayed a constantly cutting lo-res montage of lookbook and “show” images for this collection. As well as emphasizing the garments, shoes and bags, these lingered on headshots of the cast which included Don Letts of Big Audio Dynamite, Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, and drum ’n’ bass legend Goldie.
Midway through the London shoot, Goldie had scripted the name of his pioneering record label Metalheadz down each leg of his double-treated denim pants: Slocombe was understandably excited by this (said pants were on the rail) and reported that he and Hassimi were considering how best to divest this one-off grail to a worthy cause. Goldie’s involvement synced nicely because the collection was loosely inspired by pirate radio culture: the jaggedly angular tape seaming that ran through the collection’s technically treated future tailoring and sometimes ornately cinched urban utility pieces was derived from imagery of illicit antennae used to broadcast unlicensed radio in the BD (before digital) age. Goldie’s Timeless was arguably the first great album—itself now an anachronistic format—to break through into the UK mainstream via stations such as Kool FM, Pulse and Rush. So as a nod to A-Cold-Wall’s inspiration, Goldie’s casting was a deft move by this new team.
Metal-shot fabrics in weathered, cloudy tones were used to encase loosely volumized abstract tactical vests, a house signature. There was an interesting sort of black future-boucle in a spongy fluro-string cinched dress and jacket made in a material by Japan’s Sbider that Slocombe reported was derived from root protein. The double brim caps and cowl-like hoods were convincingly useful tools for evading both face recognition software and pirate radio enforcement officers. More broadly, this brand’s signature future-anticipating dystopic minimalism was expressed with appropriate seriousness and severity in pieces whose DNA blended military and functional sporting apparel. It was intriguing that Johanna Parv, such an innovative thinker in the space, got a shout-out on the credits list. A-Cold-Wall 2.0 is up and running.