Patching things up: Boy Kloves

During lockdown, California native Boy Kloves started a #mask4mask Instagram challenge. “There has been a huge lack of PPE supplies in the States [so] I began sewing masks to help with the shortage and used everything I had to hand to produce non-medical masks,” he told Vogue. “Halfway through my first round of mask-making, I realised I knew so many people who can sew and design, and who were now at home not doing anything. The hashtag encouraged each person I tagged to make 10 masks and then asked them to challenge three of their friends to do the same.” Response was positive but the exercise forced the Central Saint Martins graduate to think about the future of design. “It begs the question,” he wrote. “What does that revolution look like?”

It was his father’s old Scout badges - and turning them into a shirt - that kicked everything off. Since then, Boy Kloves has gone on to upcycle American flags and old Hawaiian shirts. This isn’t patchwork, however; pieces are immaculately thought through. “The motivation for me has never been to make something sustainable for the sake of it. It has to be design-led. There has to be a purpose,” he writes. “This global crisis has offered us the opportunity to rethink sustainability. It’s not about shifting the system so that everyone is upcycling or using organic materials. It’s about redesigning the system, designing less and designing with intention.”

“We need to redesign the methodology and the way we work,” he continues. “We need to look at ways we can create fashion and clothing that is pushing the boundaries of design, utility and art; fashion that is long-lasting in its impact or use. That is the revolution we need, that’s the future of sustainable design. Sustainability is not re-creating a broken system out of organic hemp; it’s breaking it down, throwing it out (or recycling it) and rebuilding something new.”

I talk to Boy Kloves about awareness amongst young designers of the twin crises of climate and biodiversity and what it’s like, making something new out of something old.

Bel: Vintage was big in the early 2000s. Now, it’s back - but this time, it feels linked to ideas of sustainability and over-consumption. Would you agree?

Boy Kloves: There’s a huge movement amongst young designers with sustainability. There's an awareness we’re creating too much and that we’re inheriting a system that is broken. I personally also feel that we're inheriting a system that confuses the fashion industry and the clothes industry. I view them as very different things.

There's a rise in kind of young people looking at things that already exist that are beautiful, usable, perfectly fine, not only to take inspiration from but to use as fabrics for creations. There’s an eagerness to use them. So it’s a mix of people looking at it from a sustainable angle but looking at it from a design angle too.

Designers, makers and creators are problemsolvers in their own right. And what you think about as a designer is coming up with a new way of making a piece of clothing. And just in time! Global warming is a crisis facing our generation. As a young person, it’s something you have to consider. Antiques and vintage are ways to address the problem.

Bel: It’s a very different way of designing from coming up with an idea and then finding the fabrics. When you work with vintage, you don't know where you're going to get.

Boy Kloves: In some ways, it’s harder. You have irregularities or projects where you don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. It’s an added element to think about. I worked for six months for Bodie in New York. They make a lot of stuff out of vintage textiles and sell it to Browns and Matches and Selfridges. While I was there, we had to figure out methods to use old textiles to accent trousers in ways that enhanced the pattern. It's more interesting. Vintage has its own life; you give it a new life and put your own stamp on it.

Bel: You’ve just finished your course at Central St Martins. How far do you feel these ideas are embedded in what you learnt there? Is there a recognition that these are issues that young people need to look at?

Boy Kloves: I saw it develop a lot over my four years there. It's become something that a lot of tutors are pushing for, even since my first year. Sustainability is a big buzzword and people will latch on to it but it’s great that they don't force it too much. I think it has to come from a student because people can [approach sustainability] in so many different ways. If you tell someone how to look at something ‘sustainably’, we’re all going to be doing the same thing again.

Bel: You said that vintage has its own life? How do you work with the history of each individual piece? Do you get engaged in the story of the item that you're using.

Boy Kloves: Early on, I was looking at my dad's old scout badges and the beautiful, interesting way that they were embroidered, which I don't think they do any more. It’s something I wanted to dive into. It's almost a way to extend your research. if you're doing a collection based on sailors, for example, and you get vintage sailing flags or vintage ropes, it adds a new layer to the design process. But it has to be design-led. You see people upcycling for the sake of it but, when it’s incorporated into the actual design of the garment, and it means something, it’s much more successful.

Bel: The concept of authenticity comes up a lot. Is this a trend or a cultural shift? 

“This global crisis has offered us the opportunity to rethink sustainability. It’s not about shifting the system so that everyone is upcycling or using organic materials. It’s about redesigning the system, designing less and designing with intention.”

By BEL JACOBS

“What you think about as a designer is coming up with a new way of making a piece of clothing.”

Vintage tablecloths find a new life.

Boy Kloves: That's a good question. Looking at fashion in ways that it can be more sustainable: that’s a cultural change. But I think upcycling is simply a method towards that, right now. In the future, I think we’re going to see a lot more innovation in the ways people can break down fabrics and fibres, and create fabrics that are more circular from the get-go.