JOHN ALEXANDER SKELTON - COLLECTION CXX

OTHERWORLD

Once the year is up and the busy maelstrom of life has closed for another chapter to open, we’re faced with the liminal, thumb-twiddling slump that is January. What can we look forward to, what will advance us into the year?

On a cold Friday evening in early January, we found ourselves just off Queen’s Road in Peckham, settling our excitement in the Asylum Arms before the evening unfolded. Amongst the locals, familiar adornments of black wool, felted hats and laced leather began to appear through the door for a drink, we assumed for the same reasons as us. Thirty minutes go frustratingly slowly and yet, in almost total unison, we few of dark wool and worn leather gathered ourselves up and out of the door onwards in seemingly the same direction. “Are they going where we’re going?” “Are we going where they’re going?” We ask each other. As we near the venue for the evening, the shroud of 7pm in January makes the approach to the Asylum Chapel all the more exciting and mystifying.

Upon stepping inside the crumbling, baroque husk of Peckham’s Asylum Chapel, we were met with a heavy fog of incense and candlelight which we have come to both expect and long for when seeing Skelton’s shows. Gathered and seated in circles around a central spotlight, we were surrounded and watched by an outer ring of scarecrow-like figures draped in white sheets.

The chitter-chatter began to die down, abruptly replaced by a slow primitive drumbeat from a masked individual representing Cernunnos, the horned Celtic deity, slowly stalking the hallowed hall. In Celtic mythology, Cernunnos was the “mediator of man and nature”, the name itself meaning “horned one”. The ongoing drum beat led way to a second masked figure, who approached the central spotlight, turning its beam to each scarecrow as Cernunnos crept in and amongst the crowd whilst reciting a poem, prodding and jestering attendees, to then strip the white sheets away from the scarecrows one by one to reveal the look underneath.

Underworld was a sensorial experience through touch as well as sight and sound, as the post-ceremonial buzz encouraged us to really see the garments within their look. Undyed wool, heavy linen hewn and hand-stitched alongside printed shirts and black jacquard. A noticeable narrative of asymmetric, wrapped knitwear and outwear versus the classic centre-front fastening (still punched with a quantity of Skelton’s signature horn buttons), all anchored by bronze fastenings and symbolic brooches by long-time collaborator Slim Barrett.

John Alexander Skelton is a huge inspiration to us at Provision, not only in terms of the garments he makes but the world he’s created. It feels like each passing collection is a step closer to his own lore, and we’re ready for it… Only a year to wait and savour for the next one.

Words and pictures by Jackson Tempest.