IMAGES Coco Wu
Between never-ending nepo-babies, urgent climate emergency considerations, and an increasingly fraught economic climate, the chances of climbing from relative obscurity to achieve overnight acclaim in the fashion industry have dwindled from slim to practically impossible. This is then multiplied when considering the sheer number of students graduating each year and desperately praying to pull it off, anyway. But perhaps most surprisingly is when the recipient of such attention doesn’t consider themselves to be a ‘designer’, hasn’t any intention of launching an eponymous line and, actually, isn’t that interested in fashion, at all.
Back in June, 23-year-old Eden Tan showcased two looks from his graduate collection, entitled ‘On Borrowed Fabric’, as part of the Central Saint Martins BA Fashion showcase. Among the wide array of designs that graced the runway for well over an hour, Eden’s work was unlike anything else his peers had presented, with the outfits still attached to their original roll of fabric, uncut.
“I wasn’t sure if people would believe I’d ‘designed’ a collection as such. The project is all about doing as little as possible to make the garments, and I feel like I did manage to achieve that because people have shared ‘I liked your collection’ and not ‘I liked your rolls of fabric’,” he candidly explains. “I think I’ve done just enough, hopefully just enough for people to believe in the clothes as a fashion collection, but also not so much that it hinders anyone later on making new clothes from the rolls.”
The resulting collection draws a similar sense of wonder to witnessing a magic trick, and it bagged Eden the illustrious L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Prize – an award previously won by the likes of Richard Quinn, Mary Katrantzou and Grace Wales Bonner. The collection has since been worn by A-listers Troye Sivan and Emma Corrin for their September issue cover editorials with Rolling Stones and the Evening Standard, respectively. It’s the debut response that any budding designer would dream of.
And yet, when I answer Eden’s video call just a few weeks later, he’s not in a design studio – he’s in his shed. Spending time at his parent’s house, I sense he’s seeking some home comforts as he reflects on the acclaim his collection received. Today, he’s focused on constructing some wooden shelves for his girlfriend’s bedroom, and balances his iPhone on his workbench so I can witness his handiwork.
As he explains his shelf construction process, he begins excitedly pointing out various items within the shed, labelling who made them or where they’d come from. “That one, we found on the street, and that one, that was an old table. This one was made by Dad,” Eden says, a sense of pride and deep admiration beaming as he shows them off.
Eden’s design language is fanciful and yet undeniably pragmatic in its inventive creativity. Inspired by his previous work upcycling outerwear into accessories – which he’s done much of in the shed – for his graduate collection, the young talent reimagined his materials to address the difficulties of reworking fabric that has previously been cut and sewn. “I’m quite aware that this project was pretty ridiculous, outlandish, fundamentally self-indulgent and that it’s not going to save the world,” he says with a wry smile.
And yet, it’s Eden’s unorthodox approach that leads me to believe he could be an instigator of the kind of dramatic reinvention that the fashion industry so desperately needs right now. If this industry is to stand a chance against its own destruction of the Earth’s climate, the community must adopt radical changes across almost every stage of its production, and only a can-do attitude will get us there. I think it could be time for an inventor to take charge.
MR: Firstly, I know that you were born and raised in London. How has the city inspired your creativity growing up and now?
ET: I wouldn’t say that the city inspires me too much, or I wouldn’t say the main benefit I see from living in London has been my inspiration from it. The reason it has been so great growing up here and studying here, and why it’d be difficult to leave, is that I kind of just know where everything is. Everything I need, I would know how to find it.
For instance, I make a lot of bags out of inner tubes, and I now know the bike shops around me who are happy to listen to me. And then I know the ones which aren’t, and I know that for certain bike shops, if I call them on a Tuesday, they’ll say no, and if I call them on a Friday, they’ll say yes, because there are different people working. Things like that really just
help my workflow, and I feel like I am able to resolve work because I know what my options are.
What were your earliest inspirations for studying fashion design?
I think fashion is such an interesting word to me because it’s not really fashion that I’m interested in. I haven’t done enough market research on this, but my understanding is that a lot of people get interested in fashion for the culture of it. You know, the who wears it, who designed it, the runways, this kind of stuff. Whereas my interest in it is more about the materials which are used… fashion is just a lens to explore the manipulation of fabric through, rather than centring around the people.
Where did your interest in materials and fabrications come from? I can see from your surroundings that you’re keenly interested in making, and I saw that you have a tinkering account tagged in your Instagram bio. What initially sparked this interest, do you remember?
I’m not totally sure, you know. Not to sound like an old person – not an old person, but I don’t want to sound like I think I’m wiser than I am – but as you get older, you realise that your upbringing is probably different from other people’s. Whereas, when you’re younger, you assume that everyone’s lives are very similar.
Everything in this room, except for the furniture made by me, everything in this room has been made by my Dad. He was constantly doing DIY and making, and I think I took this for granted and assumed this was typical. I’m starting to realise that I’ve been so fortunate in what I grew up around, like I have this shed full of materials. And although it’s not the most glamorous materials – it’s mostly bits of plywood which my dad has picked up off the street or now it’s bits of plywood that I pick up off the street – it’s amazing to have access to that resource.
How did your practice develop through the lens of fashion design?
My work is focused on materiality, and quite often the projects are working with one very specific feature or one very specific ambition to do something quite pure, not cross-contaminated with different ideas. It’s just one idea. That’s the main goal, and that just comes from working with the materials and the garment construction, and finding small details in that and magnifying them to the whole project, if that makes sense.
Yes, it does. What were the most valuable lessons you took from developing your practice in this fashion setting?
I’d only studied sewing a bit [before university], but what’s interesting is that when you study a lot of different ways of making – which I do a bit of, working with different materials and different ways of working – it is really interesting to see the overlap of how different tools accomplish the same goals across different disciplines. Drawing a straight line, for instance, when you’re at school you’d use a ruler, when you’re pattern cutting, you’d use a pattern master and when you’re in construction you’d use a chalk line. I think if you work with your hands quite a lot then you can pick up making clothes quite easily.
Typically for our ‘Designing Differently’ interview series at BRICKS, we discuss their design process. What I find so interesting about your graduate collection is that you’ve honed in on one element of the garment’s design process. How much was this an intentional decision when it came to creating your graduate collection?
Well, I’ll just preface by saying I think it’s interesting you say that because that feels like a positive thing for me, if you can see the process in the final outcome. Sometimes when you’re designing – and I haven’t made my mind up on which is better – sometimes the process is just for you as a designer to find the path to that original outcome, and sometimes the final outcome should serve as the manual for people to understand the process. For me when I work, the process I would say is just for me, it’s a means to get to the end rather than something that people need to study afterwards. But the most profound work is the work that when you just look at it you can understand the process viscerally.
What made me interested in it is that I do a lot of, I don’t like to call it ‘upcycling’ but it’s basically upcycling, turning jackets into bags etcetera. For this collection, I wanted to do a project which put me at the beginning of that process rather than at the end. When I’m making these bags and upcycling out of other people’s waste, I’m very much beholden to how they used the material before, so if they cut an extra small jacket, or an extra large jacket, I will have to pander to that limitation when I’m working with it.
I wanted to make a project where I was at the beginning, I was making something new, but I was considering the person who would be managing the waste afterwards. Putting myself at the other end of the timescale and working with that idea, I came to the solution that the best way to make it easiest for the next person to reuse my fabric would be if the garment never left the [fabric] roll. And, if I could not touch the fabric at all, that would be most ideal.
I wanted to make a project where I was at the beginning, I was making something new, but I was considering the person who would be managing the waste afterwards. I came to the solution that the best way to make it easiest for the next person to reuse my fabric would be if the garment never left the [fabric] roll. And, if I could not touch the fabric at all, that would be most ideal.
Eden Tan
I’m curious to understand what you dislike about having your previous work referred to as upcycling?
Possibly it’s just a cultural thing and the word has lost its interest to me, it may have been taken up by too much culture. To me, my work is not necessarily upcycling because I’m trying to add to the legacy and history of the object that I’m regenerating into something else. I’m trying to pay homage to the original object and not just – for lack of a better word – ‘exploit’ it for its material. What I want to do is respect its history before it came to me and add to its story, so if I’m making a rucksack out of a jacket, then the rucksack needs to resemble the jacket. Not always as literally as that, but people should be able to understand its history regardless.
A lot of upcycling I see, which we all fall under the same umbrella of, is taking these objects, treating them like fabric, wishing they were square bits of fabric and then cutting them up. Whereas when I design, I’m trying to approach it in a more artisanal way where I work with what’s in front of me. I’m thinking of those jacket pieces now, if they’re a certain shape then the bag pattern needs to be made from that certain shape instead of forcing a conventional method of making clothes onto unconventional materials. This ties back to my graduate collection, as when I’m making something new from something old, I’m always trying to think of how to incorporate its original form.
I’m trying not to just apply traditional ways of making clothes – at least, ‘traditional’ in the Western world – and just apply them without thinking about my materials. This project does go a bit against that, as all I have to work with is that in the future people will continue to make clothes in the same traditional way they’ve made them in the past, from rolls of fabric. So this collection was trying to make clothes which, to be upcycled, you could apply any way of making them rather than having to work in the process that I do.
The collection received a glowing reception and you are one of the winners of the L’Oreal Professional Young Talent Prize. What has it been like since, and did you expect the reaction that you received from your collection?
No, I really don’t think so, I never thought that it would have that impact. It’s really nice and reassuring that it did because, throughout the project, there were so many compromises I could have made along the way, to just cut the fabric and make it appear like this or that. And I didn’t, and it’s really reinstated the need for integrity because it can have an impact, because every small little compromise you make is the start of a slippery slope.
I’m quite aware that this project was pretty ridiculous, outlandish, fundamentally self-indulgent and that it’s not going to save the world.
Eden Tan
Although it has sustainable ambitions, I know that we can’t just swap the fashion system out for this, it’s not going to help anyone. I saw this final year [of studying], firstly as an opportunity to be a bit more free, as I was aware it’s the last time, or maybe the only time in my life, I would have that stage to show my work to so many people, and I just thought that I should enjoy it. So I did, and then it had a good reception, and it helped create a platform for me to develop more practical solutions. That’s kind of how I see this collection, it’s a bit like a great marketing campaign that could enable me to work on more important solutions.
Looking to the future, what are your aspirations for your design work?
Quite specifically, for this collection, I’d like to see it cut up again in a couple of years. When my life’s moved on and everyone’s forgotten about it, I like the idea of cutting it up, turning it into something new and really living up to that precedent I set when I first made it.
How do I see my work developing? I’m not sure, I’m kind of working that out at the moment. Ever since the [CSM graduate] show finished, I’ve got a far better picture of what I’m interested in and what’s available to me, and I hope that continues to grow.
Finally, looking at the wider creative industry as you’re finding your place within it, how do you see the industry currently evolving, and how do you feel about the change that you’re seeing?
I think it would be amazing to see designers responding to the problems created by climate change with excitement. It’s a time to change the way we do things, it’s a way to invent new systems, new ways of working, new ways of selling, all these different things. And instead of being scared of the problem – because inevitably if we don’t respond to the problem, fashion might be one of the first things to go. It’s such a big polluter, and it is quite an indulgent thing to have available to us.
I want to see people addressing it with excitement because that’s what interests me, inventing systems and processes to make work and finding new ways of doing that. It creates new outcomes, and that’s what’s really exciting, really original outcomes, because the process you went through to get there is different. Instead of following a map, you can create a new path, and the destination could be quite exciting and unexpected.
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