The 2022 LVMH Prize: S.S. Daley

It's easy to get lost in Steven Stokey Daley's romanticism. To the unknowing, S.S. Daley collections can be deceptive in their theatricality and their fantastical elegance. But beneath the surface, the 2022 LVMH Prize-winning designer is exploring a side of British culture rarely addressed in fashion and quietly subverting long-established standards through the lens of menswear.

Raised in the largely working-class city of Liverpool, Daley's main interest wasn't originally fashion. "It was always in the back of my mind, somehow, but I think the time when I grew up, the most recent fashion was the high theater of McQueen shows and Galliano shows, and so that was always in my peripheral vision. But I was never a fashion geek when I was younger," he says. Daley was more interested in theater—and not costume design, as he's quick to point out—with aspirations of being an actor. It was a serious-enough pursuit that he worked on it every day after school and on weekends, too. By the time he was a teenager, few even considered that Daley might choose a career other than performing, to the point that it began to feel like a constraint. "People always assumed I would do theater, and I think I was really irritated by the expectation," he says. "I've never really liked to do what was expected of me."

He went on to the University of Westminster, where he studied graphic design before switching to fashion. "I think it was maybe a bit of rebellion against literally everyone around me that had assumed I would do [theater]," he says. "It just turned into something different." The move to London was a significant change, though one Daley had always expected to make: "You're either the person that really knows from the age of eleven that you're going to move to London or just wants to stay in the hometown. I was very determined to move." The sudden exposure to the capital's bustling city life was pivotal, both for understanding himself as well as the culture around him. "I feel like I always related to Manchester or London better than I did Liverpool or Newcastle or Essex in a way," he says. "They have a massively different sense of people, different mindsets, different cultures. I feel like with London it's much more...in some respects, as a gay person, moving to London was the safe place to be in a way."

It was in London that Daley first engaged with the ideas of class that began to shape his view. "I came across people I never came across before, different types of people, all walks of life," he explains. "That's how I started with the reference points for my first collection. I wasn't massively privy to [the extent of wealth disparities] until I moved to London." His début collection re-imagined the hypermasculine style of exclusive private schools through a queer lens, producing something softer and more fluid. "Those sort of quote-unquote elitist cultures have massively influenced what I do, just because it's so not a thing where I'm from," he says.

Daley set out to rethink staid symbols of class by re-appropriating them through his own identity and background. "The reference points have started at this sector of elitist Britain and I look at that from the opposite end of the spectrum," he says. By forcing together opposing perspectives, the designer subverts the ideas and expectations behind traditional menswear garments: Shirts are oversized and billowy, derbies and high socks are boyishly paired with shorts, and florals are a recurring motif. The collections are often composed of vintage fabrics and textiles that add to the old-world æsthetic. "We distill those political and social ideas in subversions of fabrications or color, and they're always taken from the opposite end of the spectrum," he says, referring to deadstock and antique textiles that were created for haute living before being repurposed by Daley. "So I suppose it's about the collision of two ends of the spectrum that we slap together in a way to see how that turns out."

Daley allows that he has occasionally felt buried by the ongoing debates about class conflict. "The conversation around class, especially in the UK, can feel like quite a heavy conversation," he admits. The Spring 2023 collection is more lighthearted by design. With so much attention given to his interrogation of class over his first three collections, Daley was ready to explore new elements. "It feels like it's just a moment for me to breathe, it's more of a reflection of who I am and where I am today, and it feels like it's a more joyful, lighter, whimsical, and fun collection." Still, it touches on a sliver of Britain's history, this time recalling the letters between socialite Violet Trefusis and writer Vita Sackville-West while the two were having a "forbidden" affair in the early twentieth century. At London Fashion Week in September, men and women strutted out in wide-legged trousers, floral embroidered suits, and gender-ambivalent camp-collar shirts. Daley’s penchant for romanticism was never more fitting.

Now, with so much attention and international exposure, Daley could open up the conversation beyond British culture. But there's so much more to unpack in the UK, and the designer is intent on unraveling the yarn further. "When I think about the global influence, it actually makes me want to center it more on British heritage and culture because that's my culture and heritage," he explains. "Also, it's quite a nice way to actually show a different interpretation to the rest of the world. For me, when I think about British heritage, growing up seeing it and understanding it, it feels very stale, very dry, very old, and stiff and straight. And I think we're undoing that a little bit and remaking it in our image."

For more information, please visit SSDaley.com. See the full 2022 LVMH Prize portfolio here. Read this story and many more in print by ordering our fifth issue here.

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