Meet Jimmy Howe, the designer celebrating what it means to be a man
This is A HOT MINUTE WITH, a quick-fire interview series championing all the rising talent catapulting into fashion, art and music’s fickle stratosphere. From pinch-me moments to bad dates and even worse chat-up lines, think of it as an overindulgent conversation – like the ones you have in sticky club toilets at 4.A.M. Except these guests don’t regret the overshare…
Courtesy of @jimhowe
NAME JIMMY HOWE
AGE 23
LOCATION London, England
STAR SIGN Cancer
MOST USED APP Something great like Strava or OLIO? But actually Instagram…
For Jimmy Howe, exploring identity through fashion is one of the only ways you can truly show your authentic self in life. The 23-year-old, MA Menswear student at CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS believes that fashion - along with music and food - is the most effective way to engage with audiences on a sensual level, to dissect your own mind, and to demand questions of the world.
Creating what he describes as “healthy menswear,” the designer wants to show the beauties of masculinity through dismantling the notions that have been built up around what it means to be a man. “The distortions of masculinity are now represented in spending, occupying, and competing, values which threaten ourselves as well as our planet,” he explains. “My work encourages empathy in men, and celebrates men who care.”
Being inspired by the sweeter underbelly of masculinity and the things in the world that piss him off, Jimmy sees his work as a profound reflection of his inner self: “I mean the work is so intensely me, it comes from things I love, ideas I hate, colours that go great together, fabrics that I think people should match more. So, in that sense it just naturally ties into my interests.”
Ry Gavin: Why did you want to get into fashion?
Jimmy Howe: Artwork is someone’s opinion (or lack of opinion), and there aren’t many opportunities where you can really feel someone’s opinion right down to your core. I think music, food and fashion are those few opportunities. Where in music and food you can engage with how someone thinks on a sensual level, with fashion you can really climb into someone’s idea, try it on, take it off, agree or disagree with it. I’ve always been into artwork which involves people in a physical sense, then I discovered how to make clothes.
RG: What is your relationship with your work? Do you find it a struggle or is it more of a release?
JH: During the past year, my work has become a lot more therapeutic. It has always been an outlet for things that are pissing me off, but more recently it has started giving me a lot more direction in answers. My final collection was as much a criticism of myself as it was of the issues with masculinity in a wider context. So often when a piece, an outfit, or a pattern becomes resolved, it’s as much of a feeling of self-resolution as it is about something physical.
RG: What’s the best thing you’ve overheard at CSM?
JH: “What are you wearing to the Extinction Rebellion Protest?”
RG: Who do you make clothes for?
JH: Men who care.
RG: Who would you most love to see wearing your designs?
JH: KEVIN MCCLOUD or LIL YACHTY... Together would be fucking amazing.
RG: When do you feel most inspired?
JH: When I’m people watching.
RG: If only one pub in London could reopen, which ones should it be and why?
JH: The Auld Shillelagh on Church Street. They have the Ireland 2003 football kit in a frame, and I’ve got the same top. I’m hoping if I wear it there I might get a free pint.
RG: What’s one song that you can’t understand why people like?
JH: Any Drake song?
RG: What inspired your most recent hat designs?
JH: Those knitted trapper hats that babies wear. So sick.
RG: How do you want to be seen as a designer?
JH: From afar.
RG: What’s one thing you want to change about the fashion industry?
JH: Its social accessibility.