
Meadham Kirchhoff SS13. Image courtesy of NOWFASHION and Meadham Kirchhoff.
Timed to coincide with London Collections Men and curated by SHOWStudio’s formidably smart editor Lou Stoppard, the Fashion Space Gallery’s latest exhibition, one of its liveliest yet, explores fashion’s obsession with male youth.
Focusing on the different incarnations of young manhood, Mad About The Boy brings together the work of a luminous rosta of designers and image-makers who have explored the theme. It’s a who who of visual talent, including Raf Simons, J W Anderson, Nick Knight, Larry Clark, Jason Evans, Kim Jones, Meadham Kirchhoff, Tyrone Lebon, Nasir Mazhar, Martine Rose, Gosha Rubchinskiy, Christopher Shannon, Judy Blame and more. Audio recordings of the creatives talking about their memories and perception of youth are included alongside editorials, films and looks from seminal collections. The result, like its subject, is rich, dense with cultural reference and endlessly evolving.
To be young is, supposedly, to be free – creatively, sexually, personally and politically and it is this perception of youth, says Stoppard, ‘as a time of perceived infinite opportunity’, that creates fashion’s obsession with the boy. ‘Designers return to the same themes again and again, constructing and rehashing the dream male,’ she says.

Christopher Shannon SS16. Image courtesy of Christopher Shannon.

Raf Simons SS16. Image courtesy of Raf Simons.

Walter Van Beirendonck’s Bad Baby Boys AW1986/7. Photograph Patrick Robyn.

Nasir Mazhar SS15. Image Nasir Mazhar.