Adam Jones AW19 Fashion Fanfare
A satirical traipse through pub culture tropes presented on high-fashion slopes
Review by Roisin Tapponi
Photography by Silvia Draz
Remove yourself from the white-box walls of the Old Truman Brewery. Definitely remove yourself from Shoreditch. You’re in Wales now, on the A48 from west Newport to east Cardiff, and you’re gagging for a beer (you are obviously not driving, this is still Fashion Week). You veer into your average British pub, wooden pub tables carrying half-eaten Walker’s crisp packets and pints half-full of Heineken. No Punk IPA here. Except, something is not quite right. It’s not rough around the edges, it’s fashion around the edges. Lounging on walls are beer mats sewed onto t-shirts, with football shirts inspired dressed in pink satin, flesh revealed through cheeky slits between the stripes. You’ve arrived at Adam Jones’s AW19.
Traditional male pub culture was effaced — seen most imminently in the menswear presentation through the inclusion of women, casting an equal split of male and female models. Adam presented his first high-fashion collection in 2016 at the pub he was working at, providing baseline inspiration for all of his following collections. Small leopard-print bags were defaced with the Heineken logo, and a knit tote marketed Marshalls Brewing. Comparable to Moschino’s AW14 collection, but rather than Brillo or McDonald’s British marketing was the selling point. And what was Adam Jones selling us exactly? He was marketing pub culture, in short, marketing a good time. With icy-coldness between the models and house music pulsating in the background, high-fashion flirted with the working men’s club beyond the garments.
Knitted grandad pullovers were printed with old-school chocolate advertisements but nothing was worn underneath, skirts were long but shirts weren’t tucked in, and a frayed scarf acted as trousers. The clothes were imitating clothing items other than themselves, but not quite getting it right. Charmingly self-reflexive was the discourse between good and bad taste, contributing to the satirical, tongue-and-cheek concept. This also extended to the styling of the outfits, classic silhouette cream trousers were worn in stark contrast with football shirts, leopard-print, psychedelic-print and even horse-prints were thatched onto tailored looks, all clashing in a mob of lime greens, ketchup reds and candy pinks.
I return to the word charming — the collection was refreshed with a satirical ode to British humour, reminding us that whilst the fashion world is more competitive and cut-throat than ever, there is always time to stop for a Heineken.
