25 October 2023 |
Shielded by a distressed grey cap, wearing Ugg boots and a hoodie by the New York label Telfar, Aaron Esh emerges from beneath the shutters of a dry cleaners just off Essex Road, Islington. Laddish in his appearance, with a stubbled face, charming smile and gentle demeanour, he explains the place belongs to his aunt, who has kindly let him use the shop’s basement as a studio since his days as a student.
Descending below street level, you’re left with the impression that Esh’s ambition will soon outgrow the intimate space. Three interns huddle in whispers arounda cutting table, piecing together the beginnings of what will become his SS24 collection. Esh is set to make his London Fashion Week debut this month with his first catwalk show. The designer is now part of the British Fashion Council’s NewGen emerging talent initiative.
Having designed fashion-forward menswear thus far, he is now introducing womenswear into his eponymous label’s arsenal. An easy transition, no doubt, thanks to the fact that half of Esh’s customer base is already made up of women who are delighted with the designer’s quietly sensual tailoring. His collections come peppered with plenty of feminine flourishes. Sliced and diced suit jackets become torso-hugging halternecks, liquid silk shirts drape elegantly off the shoulder and, most distinctly, a bubble-hem mini skirt sits atop a pair of Armani-grey tailored trousers. (That last piece is based on a styling trick by Esh’s girlfriend, System magazine’s Fiona Hartley.) Clever borrowings from womenswear and an impeccable approach to cut and silhouette helped propel Esh to this year’s LVMH Prize finals. When we speak, he’s still in disbelief at the whole experience, particularly about having been able to meet a slew of his design heroes, including Jonathan Anderson, at the semifinals in Paris. “I told him that I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for his work. Afterwards, I thought to myself, ‘That was so cringe.’” Throughout the competition process, it wasn’t only his talent, but his authenticity that shone through. “I wanted to speak to Anna [Wintour] in the same way I would speak to someone’s mum if they came up to me. I described the brand to [her] like taking Jil [Sander] and placing it on Kingsland High Road. I had no idea, but her brother lives on Kingsland High Road. You could see on her face she understood the reference.”
Esh and his trusty assistant, Meatball the Pekingese
Having grown up in East London, where he still lives today, Esh’s label is shaped by fleeting, everyday encounters and the friends who make up his local community. “Luxury fashion is, historically, aimed at the 0.1 per cent – rich-people clothes feel unattainable. I’m taking ideas of elegance and sophistication but placing it on this boy walking down [a] Dalston [street]. “The work is very city-centric,” he continues. “I don’t see it as feminine, I don’t particularly see it as super-masculine either. It’s in this space which feels contemporary but also feels very me.” Now in his early thirties, Esh’s clothes reflect a change in pace when it comes to his own life. His AW23 collection takes its cues from the dinner parties that he and his friends throw in their flats, as Saturday night becomes less about sticky dance floors and more about sticky toffee puds. “[The collection] started with a picture I took of my girlfriend wearing this silk Galliano gown, smoking a cigarette out of our window at midnight. It spoke to this idea of spending time at home, looking at what my friends are wearing to come and have martinis at my house.” The act of getting half-dolled-up to dance around your mate’s living room was something he translated into relaxed tux jackets dressed down with straight-leg jeans, worn alongside tight-fitting hoodies, trousers that slouched at the ankle and an MA-1 bomber that took the shape of a ballgown.
Looks from the AARON ESH AW23 COLLECTION, Photographer ADAM PETER JOHNSON
Esh grew up fascinated with fashion but didn’t have the inkling he would pursue it as a career. Since his early teens, he studied the style tribes that populated his native city. “I could tell the boy that was from South London [compared] to the boy that was from East London, to the boy that went to the footy to the boy that was off to a rave,” says Esh. His grandfather was a tailor, having moved to London from Cyprus in the 1960s to open a series of dry cleaners and clothing factories acrossIslington (Esh’s father grew up a stone’s throw from the designer’s studio). Through his teens, Esh’s interests spanned from Raf Simons to skaters to Savile Row. “Even now, we use so many techniques that feel very classic in Savile Row. There are little elements which are taken from classic British tailoring but in a piece which feels very new.” He ended up pursuing a graphic design degree before making a switch to fashion design at the age of 25. “It wasn’t necessarily like I found fashion as my medium– I could’ve easily gone into sculpture, photography or something different. I love making things with my hands. I think that graphics and doing things on a computer weren’t fulfilling that need.” Following an undergraduate degree at London College of Fashion, he joined the menswear master’s programme at Central Saint Martins in 2020. Esh’s graduate collection, shown in February of last year, was largely inspired by his mother, a Polish sculptor who now lives in the US. “I grew up with all these mad things in the house,” says Esh, “like a coat she made out of pins or when she made a ball of yarn that was the height of this room.”
With sponsorship from Alexander McQueen, Esh focused on structure and silhouette, rewriting traditional Parisian couture techniques to dress the London lad: think moulded leather jackets with hulking 3D-printed shoulders, dress shoes shaped like commas and draped vests with spiral, copper structures gliding across the shoulder. He’d never intended to sell the collection until the Canadian e-tailor Ssense came knocking, offering to buy the lot. “The fabric we used for the hoodies was from the bin at uni, so I had to go and find similar fabrics that I could buy 50 metres of. I had to grade everything. I had no money. From that moment,I haven’t stopped, I’ve just been learning on the job. If you decide to start a new brand and you’re an entrepreneur, you’re usually a marketing person or finance person or business person, butI had to learn all of that by myself.I’ve made a lot of mistakes, spent a lot of money that has definitely been wasted, but I feel quite confident now in running a business, managing the studio and being a good boss.” For Esh, keeping the business based in London is vital. He produces all his pieces in Forest Gate, not far from Stratford, East London, working with tailors who have more than 30 years of experience. “It’s expensive and I could probably save 30 per cent making it in Portugal, but I would rather reinvest that money back into the economy of London fashion by working with local factories.” He’s focused on expanding the brand, especially when it comes to leather goods, and seeing Aaron Esh in a fully realised catwalk setting. Before all that, though, he’d just like a day off. “I haven’t been on holiday for two years. I don’t really have much of a social life,” he says. What does he getup to when he’s not in the studio, then? “I’m a massive Arsenal fan,” he says. “I mean massive fan. I’ve been to games with my dad and even subscribe to all the Patreon podcasts.” He’s big on Xbox, too, particularly Call of Duty, where he and his mates immerse themselves in virtual battlegrounds way into the evening. Pretty normal stuff from the bloke destined to be British fashion’s next great force.
Top Image: Aaron Esh in his North London studio. Taken from Issue 58 of 10 Men – ELEGANCE, BEAUTY, GRACE – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
Look from the AARON ESH AW23 COLLECTION, Photographer ADAM PETER JOHNSON
AARON ESH: IMPECCABLE
Photographer ANNA STOKLAND
Text PAUL TONER
