House of the Very Island's Royal Club Division Middlesex Klassenkampf, But the Question Is: Where Are U, Now?

Cool article from hintmag.com, for up and coming "avant-garde" designers...


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rst, the obvious question—what does the name mean?

The name includes many terms and phrases, just like there are many members of our fashion gang. We struggled for three months to come with it. We had big fun.

So, what do all the terms and phrases mean?

The "House of the Very Island's" part means a closed system, and it's inspired by films like Paris Is Burning, with its house fights and vogueing competitions. The "Royal" thing is a little bit of a problem. "Club Division" is our, or my, connection to nightlife. The term "Middlesex" has a double meaning for us. There is the part of the UK called Middlesex, but mostly it's the gender thing, as in which gender you are performing at the moment. It's also the name of a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. In German, "Klassenkampf" means class war. "Where Are U, Now?" for me means changing, positioning and steadily challenging.

Is it an anti-fashion line, a reaction to the fashion establishment?

I don't think it's an anti-fashion line, but we try to think differently, especially in terms of gender. For example, we insist on doing clothing not just for men or women, but for people. We don't deal with stereotypes, which are boring and ugly for us.

You had a lot to say about gender in your spring collection.

Yes, we tried to merge displaced male and female lifestyles. We linked together images and cliches of 1990’s aesthetics, so often influenced by transgender performers: the cross-dresser, the dyke, feminine men, masculine women, queer clubwear, the ridiculously romantic look and avant-garde chic. We tried to achieve a new kind of aesthetic from a time when queer and gender theory became an important academic discourse.

I take it you're a champion of the disenfranchised?

We present people off the beaten track that nowadays is so full of either the teenage couture fairies lying around in magazines or the “I can wear a sexy dress and high heels and still be independent and strong” MTV lot. We're particularly against the fashion world’s careless and cynical “we are so over it” eye-rolling on the topic of politics, as if it were obviously no longer a contemporary concern.

The label sounds very politically conscious then.

Yes, socio-politically. The spring collection, like the one before, was produced in collaboration with Merit, an Austrian association promoting the re-integration of long-time unemployed women. Our tailoring, for example, is intended to help these women in the countryside get back into the work force. We also work with Gea, a shoe manufacturer with a social and political attitude. And everybody gets paid fairly—well, except us. In this way, we try to show different ways or other sides of life or other lives. We try to push change forward slowly. We're not perfect, but we are working on that.

Environmentally, too, your clothes are made responsibly?

Yes. Most of our fabrics are organic and plant-dyed without chemicals, or they're pure wool, linen or cotton. If not, they meet eco-standards otherwise.