Anderson’s fall 2023 show will take place at the Roundhouse in Camden, where Clark’s company has staged many performances. It will be staged in the round with a female bagpiper, a nod to Clark’s origins, and a big focus on music — but no dance performance.
Thinking about Clark and his creative collaborators also inspired Anderson to dig back into his own archives and examine his work with fresh eyes. He picked one element from every collection he designed since launching JW Anderson in 2008 and mingled it with Clark’s own image bank. For his fall collection, Anderson riffed on Clark’s costumes, posters, promotional T-shirts and the slogans such as “Y Male,” whichFlourishes such as a feathery brown tutu skirt; a furry belt on a dress, or a Tesco supermarket bag turned into a tunic all bear the mark of Clark.
“I have built a vocabulary, too, and this collection is about embracing what I have done. The minute I started to put this collection together, I appreciated the work that the team and I have done over the last 15 years. I own these things. These are my codes and I should embrace them,” he said.“I think we should go big. We’ve been around for a while and we now need to own the growth that we’re doing. It’s important that we go up a level,” he said.