Sarabande scholar Andrew Davis gets creative with crafting tools and firearms, proving it’s not the tools that make the clothes, but the designer.
Having stumbled into fashion design during his college career, Andrew Davis, menswear designer and 2022 Sarabande scholar, is redefining the meaning of fashion.
Tape and construction paper were at the forefront of his post-undergraduate menswear collection. Already quite the unconventional clothing materials, Davis took it one step further. Without a sewing machine, he turned to the most unassuming tool that everyone keeps stuffed inside their desk drawer into a form of stitching. A stapler.
“I was essentially sewing with a stapler. And that was just a way to kind of get an idea across without a sewing machine. It’s a way to be resourceful,” said Davis.
During the pandemic, Davis was recluded in his mother’s garage in the mountains of Colorado where, like most of us, he wore sweats day in and day out. The leisurewear that he wore everyday inspired him to create a formalwear collection of suit jackets, ties, and dress shirts that juxtaposed his daily life. Searching for the opposite of where he was physically (a garage) and geographically, he sought to create his own fantasy world. But, with little to no design tools, he used his imagination. Scotch tape was his thread and a stapler was his needle.
“I think it’s just a series of decisions you’re making with your hands and you’re not really thinking too much about it. That’s kind of how I stumbled upon the paper and tape world,” said Davis.
Using this technique, Davis created impressions and representations of traditional formalwear clothing. “You get to define what everything is going to look like. It’s actually easier. I think it’s almost harder to do things by the book and properly,” said Davis.
With this project, Davis received the Sarabande scholarship from Daniel Roseberry, creative director of Schiaparelli, and was given the opportunity to study at Central Saint Martins in London. It was here that he was reintroduced to the sewing machine and initially fell flat. He had conquered the unusual, and yet he struggled with conventional clothing.
“I was always hesitant to use a model. I never thought of my clothes on a body. I would just make garments and photograph it on the floor or suggest the body in a different way. It never occurred to me that clothes should go on a human,” said Davis. He left London for summer break with a J. Crew inspired, clean and crisp collection. Then, he shot each piece with various guns. “I made these clothes in London and I took them back to America and I kind of dipped them into America,” said Davis.
“I thought it was so cool. I loved walking around with this rip as almost like a badge of honor. It just felt cool. It felt fun.”
The inspiration came to him after a biking accident that left rips in his shorts and shirt. “I thought it was so cool. I loved walking around with this rip as almost like a badge of honor. It just felt cool. It felt fun,” said Davis.
He distressed his perfect British collection with American guns, bleached them in the sun, and tore them apart with a drill to resemble “what America feels like”. Davis described it as “Being on the precipice of something really violent, but really beautiful, and observing in fear and amazement.”
The next thing for Davis? Selling. He wants to bring his projects to the world. “It’s like when you give someone an old T-shirt or when you give someone a book you’ve made. It’s very deep. There’s something very warm and nice about that. I think that kind of sincereness and that kind of smallness of interaction is what I’m kind of into creating,” said Davis.
Imagery courtesy of Andrew Davis.
