Though the times be tough, Charles Jeffrey and his Loverboy people put on a big, noisy, all-singing, all-dancing takeover in the courtyard of Somerset House for his 10th anniversary. Beth Ditto was doing the singing—belting out Patti Smith’s “Gloria” with back-up, from a balcony, by the Somerset House choir—while Jeffrey’s madcap band of friends skipped, whirled, and chucked rose petals. “Ultimately, we’re about creating joy, I think,” Jeffrey had said earlier.
Madcap, literally: everything from animal-eared beanies to giant baker-boy caps, balaclavas and bicornes, Peter Pan nightcaps, and paper hats rendered in felt. Then, to top it off, a Tower of London crenelated castle, a big shredded bin-bag busby, and Erin O’Connor wearing a horned head-dress in the shape of a computer game character. “I find animism and queerness are very interlinked,” Jeffrey remarked.
Oversized beanies have turned out to be his breakout cult item—you see teenagers slouching at bus-stops in them all over London. That’s some kind of accolade, considering these little neo-grungers were just starting nursery when Jeffrey was beginning to design years ago. “I want to kind of remind people to dream, and go back into that kind of alternative reality,” he said.
Props to him: at the beginning, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy’s rambunctious performances pioneered gender fluidity in fashion internationally; just the sort of thing that burnishes London’s reputation for producing outrageous, exuberant politically-pointed youth cultures. Matty Bovan was in the same class; it was a moment. “It was just at the beginning of public conversations around gender,” Jeffrey reflected.
The new show was a Charles Jeffrey Loverboy comeback of sorts; since gaining minority investment from the Italian Tomorrow group, Jeffrey’s been taking his shebang to Milan for the last few seasons. On the other hand, Somerset House, an arts institution, has been home to his studio since 2016, and tonight also inaugurated the opening of “The Lore of Loverboy,” a retrospective exhibition in its Terrace Gallery telling the story of the brand that grew from the queer club night Jeffrey convened at Vogue Fabrics in Dalston, inciting DIY dressing-up mayhem to fund his MA at Central Saint Martins.
Alex Kessler, now an Ssense writer, who was part of the Loverboy fashion student creative gang, remembers, “it was pretty wild, but it was also very friendly. And there was a real sense of community. In hindsight I feel like I was definitely part of a cultural shift, but at the time I was having fun.”
The show was a fillip to London’s spirits as a fashion capital. As a celebration of “temporality” as Jeffrey put it, there was a gift of a stopped wristwatch on every seat. Digging into and subverting history is always one of his tacks: “I wanted to render these kinds of icons of Britishness, but in queer, soft, playful things.” There were boxer shorts with medieval scalloped edges, a sweater emblazoned with a male classical nude sculpture (a memory of London’s Roman occupation, he said), and 18th century frogging across knits, which he described as “soft soldiers. Sort of playing with power structures.”
Jeffrey ran out to take his bow wearing a faux-torn navy tailored suit. It was look 1 from his fall 2018 show; or something very similar. Tattered, yet triumphantly resilient, his look struck a chord. Charles Jeffrey’s Loverboy has managed to survive Brexit and the pandemic to become a brand that sells beanies, nutty accessories, and fun knitting. He’s still only 33, and, to his credit, there’s a whole new generation spending their pocket money to join his club.
