Menswear designer Nathan Korn wants you to feel sexy
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 @nathan.korn
NAME NATHAN KORN
AGE 28
LOCATION London, England
STAR SIGN Virgo (and proud)
BIGGEST PET PEEVE Fully carpeted floors in bathrooms and kitchens.
There’s nothing corny about Nathan Korn’s fashions. More appropriate words spring to mind: sensual, naive, romantic. His menswear is underlined with a quiet sensuality. A London born and bred designer, he describes his customer as both youthful and sentimental - the Nathan Korn boy has a cracking pair of legs and “hates wearing shoes.” Korn grew up in a very green part of North London, and his clothes long to be worn whilst engulfed in a sun-kissed holiday romance. Think hip-hugging trousers made of ribbon that are an inch too small; tighty whities adorned with seashells and daisies; and cropped tees stamped with lads mid-climax. It’s all a bit Elio from Call Me By Your Name, if he’d had a few late ones at Dalston Superstore that is…
Graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2017 with a BA degree in Fashion Design with Print – and previously working with the likes of STEFAN COOKE, RICHARD QUINN and ASHISH – the designer has become a go-to for It’s a Sin star and Years and Years frontman OLLY ALEXANDER. It’ll only be a matter of time till the next batch of pop boys come knocking on his door.
Paul Toner: Describe your brand in three words?
Nathan Korn: Boyish, narrative, cute.
PT: What do you wear when you want to feel sexy?
NK: Shorts and a slightly too-tight and too-short t-shirt with a rip under one of the pits.
PT: Boxers or briefs?
NK: Briefs always have a better story to tell.
PT: If one song had to soundtrack your 2020, what would it be?
NK: Like a Prayer. Either the original or Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Kitchen Disco version.
PT: What's the best and worst franchise of Real Housewives?
NK: I’d normally say NYC is the greatest, but at the moment my heart belongs to Atlanta. The worst? I hate Dallas. And the current cast of Orange County is trash. Beverly Hills is also way past its prime.
PT: What's the funniest memory you have from your time at CSM?
NK: A tutor once asked me what grade I would give myself for a project. I said a B, and they said they were going to give me an A but since I didn’t have much confidence in myself, they’d change their grade to a B as well. It’s funny now.
PT: If you could spend lockdown anywhere in the world, where would it be?
NK: I’m happy where I am, surrounded by all my things, but obviously New Zealand’s looking pretty appealing. I wouldn’t say not to Italy either.
PT: You're cooking dinner for a date, what are you making?
NK: I’ve been watching a lot of Korean YouTubers and taking notes on all the meals they make and trying to recreate them, so it would be a Korean feast!