Tag Archives: Patrik Ervell

Patrik

California Love: Patrik Ervell on his New Collection for Vince

Chung_171114_0180
Image: Vince (above), A.P. Kim (below).
Styled by Terry Lu.

After more than a decade living in New York, Patrik Ervell went back to California. The designer, whose fashion influence stems far beyond design, now helps lead the menswear division at Vince, ditching the East Coast for the brand’s sunny Los Angeles headquarters. “I’m from San Francisco, so LA, even as California, is sort of a foreign country for me,” he shares. “It is different.” Ironically enough, in the city infamous for its traffic, he’s able to walk to the office. “I walked to work this morning in a T-shirt. There’s very little formality here.”

Ervell’s appointment to the contemporary label was announced back in September and the first collection under his direction was revealed during Paris Fashion Week in January. Vince’s utilitarian yet sophisticated vibe remains potent, with subtle tweaks that give the pieces an edge. Traditional American staples are redone in different textures and materials, creating a newness that’s refreshing in its execution. It’s all part of Ervell’s plan to integrate West Coast design influences into the larger fashion conversation.

vince1

“There’s a richer subject matter that people haven’t really dug into that much. What we’re leaning into at Vince is what I call a ‘high-classic California aesthetic,’” he explains. “This is a place, where captains of industry don’t generally wear suits. But an iconic look, like a Steve Jobs [uniform], there’s something quintessentially California about that.” He references other major brands born from the Golden State, like The North Face and Patagonia, which produced strikingly modern silhouettes and signalled a new approach to the way people dressed. “Those kind of touchpoints and references are the starting point for this California aesthetic that I’d like to explore here [at Vince].”

He undoubtedly has garnered an anthology of references to seek inspiration from throughout his career. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, he moved to New York City where he worked as an editor at V Magazine. In 2005, he launched his eponymous menswear line, which was one of the first brands stocked at the then-blossoming Opening Ceremony. Exposure to fashion from multiple angles surely affected how he approached his latest design assignment. “I think if you come at something purely from a design perspective, you miss some of the other parts of how something succeeds. Because you don’t see the before, the lead-up, the fabrics, the manufacturing, what happens after… I think having your own company leaves you well-prepared to understand that.”

vince2

Meanwhile, the methods for consuming and experiencing fashion have evolved and expanded in the 21st century. More designers are opting out of traditional runway presentations and the fashion calendar entirely. Social media is the premiere platform for sharing the new. “I love diet_prada,” Ervell reveals, laughing. “I’m also terrified of it, but I love them.” Diet Prada is the anonymous Instagram account with a cult-like following, known for calling out designers copying each other in a matter of minutes, and fueling the ongoing evolution of how the public approaches and appreciates clothing.

In terms of the space he chooses to focus on, it’s clearing up menswear. “For menswear specifically, there’s a lot of noise in one kind of area of the industry, like in a streetwear world,” he explains. “And I think when there is something so loud on one side, there’s always a space that opens up on the opposite side. It’s always about those kinds of reactions. In a funny way, I think Vince fits right in that space.”

vince-3

“It’s the beginning of an exciting new time in the industry,” he says in a way that suggests he’s intrigued with optimism. He raves about the new adidas Futurecraft 4D shoes—printed in collaboration with Carbon, a 3D printing manufacturing startup. The cage-like soles’ innovative design provides next level comfort for the wearer. “It was the first time in a while something was so new, from another planet,” he shares, excitedly. And did you know they were made in San Francisco?

While Ervell returned to his home state, he didn’t exactly return home. Now in a new city, he yields a confident vision for Vince that is entirely forward. And it seems there’s no better time than now. “California has never felt more like the future than it does today. I feel like it’s actually a very exciting time to be here.”

vince4

pefeatured

NYFWM: Backstage Patrik Ervell Spring/Summer 2018

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

Drawing from his past while retaining hope of the future, Patrik Ervell brought the innocence of his North Californian upbringing to Spring/Summer 2018 through bright, reflective nylons. Meant to protect and secure, the line took influence from science-fiction dystopia and reworked its inventive mentality through a nostalgia-tinged lens.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

0W5A9456
Image: Christopher Logan.

pefeatured

NYFWM: Backstage Patrik Ervell Autumn/Winter 2017

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

Patrik Ervell gave outerwear its due diligence for Autumn/Winter 2017, reinventing classic silhouettes in a variety of textiles for his long-awaited return to New York Fashion Week Men’s, following a two-year hiatus. The pieces, dramatic with a masculine strength, evoke the senses and awaken a harbored desire for sharp lines and crisp cuts.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

NYFWM AW17 Image: Christopher Logan.

ErvellTN

NYFW: Backstage Patrik Ervell Autumn/Winter 2015

PatrikErvell-16Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

Named Brutalist, Patrik Ervell‘s typical space age fantasy finds aggressive force in the designer’s Autumn/Winter 2015 collection: a mature presentation of clean lines layered under faux fur outerwear and paired with chunky monk strap shoes.

PatrikErvell-02Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-18Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-19Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-01Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-11Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-03Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-10Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-07Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-06Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

PatrikErvell-05Image: Manu Beltran and Pascal Chiarello.

patrik

CONVERSATIONS: PATRIK ERVELL

ErvellImage: Patrik Ervell.

Evolved from an emerging face to an extraterrestrial force, science-fiction fanatic and fashion designer Patrik Ervell ponders the future of menswear despite having already designed beyond it for the past eight years.

Essential Homme: This season you’ve hovered close to the world of business for the inspiration of your Fall/Winter 2014 collection—a futuristic invasion of workwear featuring high-tech fabrics fused with side-swept sweat-styled hair. Even for you, a fashion designer that constructs clothing across several cosmos, Wall Street seems like such a foreign place to find you. How did you get there, were you lost?

Patrik Ervell: I don’t see [it] as so literal. It’s a reference that gets treaded out a lot, but I don’t think the complete collection looks like anything you’d expect a Wall Street reference to be—there aren’t any banker stripes or gray suits. The collection is titled ‘Titan,’ but I don’t know if it was exactly a Wall Street kind of titan or rather, a new one: a different type of captain of industry that no longer wears a traditional suit.

EH: You’ve said before that suits are archaic, why do you think so?

PE: In a funny way, I think that wearing a suit makes someone seem so less serious. I grew up in San Francisco, a culture in which suits are not really part of the vocabulary, so when I see someone in a suit [today] it seems to me that they work in a restaurant or retail; that they’re trying to sell me something. Gradually, I think suits are just something that will fade away. It’s already started, and slowly there will be new sorts of uniforms for men to try.

EH: That seems like just the sort of journey that you began on this season. You’re most known for your use of unconventional tools—smart textiles, such as woven wool and sporty silks, and unexpected techniques—to create clean looks, an inflection you didn’t forget to voice in ‘Titan.’ What was one of the most memorable advances for you this season? 

PE: One of the most exciting things for me was a fur I developed from natural wool fibers with a German mill famous for making luxury teddy bears in Germany since the 1920s. We did a spray dye technique over it, and what ended up was a really rich effect that is actually quite nicer than the real thing. You can get fur anywhere today—using it isn’t any sort of big feat anymore—but this new material doesn’t try to mimic it. Up and close you can tell that it actually isn’t real fur, and in that way I think that is more interesting.

EH: Fur already has a stigma to it and can become overly nostalgic or dramatic. What spurred this interest? 

PE: Fur in menswear is tricky. It can come across gross really easily. But if it’s used in this way, where it becomes techy—almost even sci-fi—then it can feel really relevant and interesting. My faux fur has the look of a fleece jacket, and I think of it as one of those things in that the least fashionable item of the bunch somehow becomes fashion. It’s on this kind of untested ground, with the potential to become a new type of business uniform.

1 copyImages: Patrik Ervell.

EH: This faux fur formed faux fleece plays into your long-running fascination with performance sportswear. Surely drawing on your West Coast roots, how has this active style influenced you?

PE: Patagonia, North Face, and Teva have created completely new silhouettes for menswear. Some of the products from these brands, like the North Face jacket, will become the equivalent of the trench or the biker jacket in 50 years from now. They all have already assumed classic styles.

EH: There is a powerful sense of style in science fiction that lends itself to auteurs like yourself. What is the relationship between the genre and fashion? 

PE: There is only so much room in menswear for fantasy and to really experiment with new things without being silly. Somehow with the kind of charge that sci-fi has, you can do just that. You can walk a very narrow line of making menswear that has a sense of romance to it—that’s how I think of sci-fi: incredibly romantic with room for moments of extravagance—but that still has a masculine energy.

EH: Have you ever felt yourself leaning toward one side of this boundary too much?

PE: Yes, but that’s part of the fun. You have to fall onto both sides of that narrow path. As a designer you have to push a bit too far in one direction or another to drive things forward.

 

There is only so much room in menswear for fantasy and to really experiment with new things without being silly. Somehow with the kind of charge that sci-fi has, you can do just that.

 

EH: What are some of your specific inspirations from the intergalactic world?

PE: I’ve always loved the movie Dune, [but] I try to avoid literal references to things—an old movie, a subculture, a person, etc—and really try to make my collections feel more about feelings or a mood. I never want to have a theme; it’s more about a material, color, detail, shape, and developing and honing into the language of the brand instead of a seasonal-whatever. I try not to get too mood board-y.

EH: Complimenting ‘Titan,’ this season you’ve launched your biggest advertising campaign—and perhaps most different—to date. How was that conceptualized?

PE: The [complete] print campaign features two classically trained dancers and a video component that will be released later this month. There’s something a bit deadening about using models sometimes—there’s only so much they can do—so I came up with the idea with [photographer] Daniel Saanwald to do a more interesting casting.

EH: Do you find yourself having to challenge these ‘deadening’ situations often in your career?

PE: You have to. Part of being a good fashion designer is being able to reject everything that came before your current collection, which is a funny thing to say, but it’s true. You have to be able to light everything on fire and move forward.

EH: How do you disconnect from any emotional or effort-filled connection to your past work? 

PE: It’s pretty easy. I don’t think my collections are a huge departure from the previous ones—I think of them as a continuous narrative and development each season—but it’s really about a cultural feeling: one kind of a mood or a particular thought. I also tire of things quickly, and I think that’s part of my job. It makes things easier.

EH: The complexity of such a wide-reaching campaign must reflect some sort of growth for the business. Things must be going well for Patrik Ervell?

PE: I think so. It’s baby steps. I’ve reached a point where I can’t leave it up to a stylist and a photographer on a random shoot to interpret what the brand looks like; instead, I have to do it myself with my team. I think it’s important to set your own tone for the season. Menswear is very specific. It has its own language and since it’s my language, I have to do it myself.

EH: By influence and clearly shown in practice, you are very much a designer that looks to the future. You’ve famously said before that ‘menswear needs context.’ Do you think there are new territories left to be discovered in men’s fashion?

PE: Yes, there has to be. The way men approach dressing in Asian countries is very different than your average American guy. As a menswear designer here, it can be very restricting and limiting, in regards to what you’re expected to make for the American market. I think the globalized fashion world—especially one in which people have begun to really prize American designers—will change this. Designers will no longer be beholden to an American department store that expects khakis, and that is very exciting.

Ervell-MJJ_8666

NYFW Backstage: Patrik Ervell SS15

Ervell-MJJ_8666

Image: Melodie Jeng.

Ervell-MJJ_8489

Image: Melodie Jeng.

Ervell-MJJ_8846

Image: Melodie Jeng.

Appearing out of foggy and unknown depths, only to be mounted against a dimly-lit transparent screen (casually, à la The Outsiders), the boys of Patrik Ervell’s Spring/Summer 2015 runway show displayed the lonely out-of-this-world stare that the sci-fi-inspired designer has been curating season after season. Like a musical cover of a well known harmony, this collection was no different for Evell in feel, yet also familiarly and watercoloredly progressive.

04_EHAS14_C1

Daniel Radcliffe Stars on Cover of August/September 2014 Issue of Essential Homme

04_EHAS14_C1

New York – August 13, 2014 – The August/September 2014 issue of Essential Homme Magazine focuses on menswear’s most memorable moments in the Fall/Winter 2014 season.

Two full-look editorials (‘Living Legacy’ starting pg. 038 and ‘Into the Wilderness’ on pg. 094) feature iconic designers such as Saint Laurent by Heidi SlimaneGivenchyVersacePrada, and more. ‘The Big Bang’ (pg. 110) illustrates a colorful offering of innovative footwear styles by the likes of adidas by Raf SimonsDior Homme, and Tom Ford. Moving backstage, in-depth interviews with designers Patrik Ervell (pg. 106), Gucci’s Creative Director Frida Giannini (pg. 086), and Giuseppe Zanotti (pg. 140) shine a light on the methods behind the madness of some of the most powerful minds in men’s fashion. The highly anticipated finalists of Essential Homme‘s #getscouted global model search with Wilhelmina Models are finally revealed in a denim-done-right editorial (pg. 152). Finally, Daniel Radcliffe is unveiled as Essential Homme‘s August/September cover star and the cover story, ‘Hero of the Heart’ (pg. 128), introduces the former child star as a highly-successful and slightly lovesick young man in his new movie, What If.

Also included in this issue: Fresh new scents from Jimmy ChooMichael Kors, Valentino, and more (pg. 161), HUGO’s commandingly minimal Fall 2014 collection (pg. 144), the turtleneck comeback (pg. 122), and more.

“Our Fall Fashion Issue—one of Essential Homme’s largest—proves man’s ability to constantly reinvent himself,” said Terry Lu, Editor in Chief. “From the globalization of royal suit makers Gieves & Hawkes to Daniel Radcliffe’s reclamation of his craft, and even the re-popularization of the polka dot, the August/September 2014 issue cuts to the core of men’s style, separating the trends from the truth.”

The August/September 2014 issue of Essential Homme Magazine is available on national newsstands and online as of today.

For further information please contact info[at]essentialhommemag.com.

About Essential Homme Magazine:
Essential Homme is the style source for affluent, successful, and fashion-forward men who are passionate about high quality, high-end luxury fashion.

Screen Shot 2014-02-19 at 2.49.27 PM

Streetwear: Coming to a Suburb (Nordstrom) Near You

 

Video: Nordstrom.

The somewhat ironic reappropriation of ‘street clothes’ by department stores might be the best and worst thing to happen to high-income, McMansion-toting suburban neighborhoods since Alpha DogActually, maybe even Justin Timberlake in totallity. I’m looking at you, SoCal Bros. But I mean, hey if you can go to Macy’s for pair of low-sagging, white-stitched True’s with a straight face, more power to you, just not sure how much street cred that $49.99 comes with, or what that even means in Bellevue Square, WA.

That being said, never before has such a large-scale trickle down retail occurrence happened as high-end (re: ‘high-end’), hood (re: ‘hood’), or just really fucking cool as Nordstrom’s Heartbreaker’s Club.

VFILES_Hood By Air Skeleton Long Sleeved T Shirt

Image: Nordstrom.

Curated by the store’s Director of Creative Projects, Olivia Kim, the special-edition pop in features select menswear ranging from fuccboi favorites such as Been Trill, Hood by Air, LPD New York, Mark McNairy New Amsterdam, Pendleton, and VFILES, alongside classic contemporary brands like A.P.C., Patrik Ervell, Nike, and even newcomers October’s Very Ownthe first retail occurance for the Drake-founded company.

Peep from some more of our favorites from Heartbreaker’s Club below, and check it out IRL at Nordstroms in Seattle, Bellevue Square, NorthPark Center, San Francisco Centre, Tysons Corner Center, Oakbrook, Garden State Plaza, and King of Prussia, just don’t get too carried away. It’s not like we’re talking about Lance Armstrong wristbands here!

Heartbreaker’s Club is available at select Nordstrom stores from now until March 16.

PatrickErvill (14)66

NYFW: Backstage Patrik Ervell AW14

PatrickErvill (14)66

Images by Ernie Green.

“It’s fake, but in fact it’s made from an animal fiber, so it’s a really luxurious material. I guess it’s my take on a fur coat,” said designer Patrick Ervell backstage at Milk Studios, after premiering his Autumn/Winter 2014 collection, “Titan” on Monday evening. Pieced together from the basics of formal suiting and Wall Street workwear the collection, in true Ervell form, utilizes unconventional fabrics—in this case a woven wool, “teddy bear fur”—as it’s center piece.” As he concluded, “fur is a bit of a challenge in menswear, but in this very Patagonia way, it’s very current.” Go further backstage with our exclusive photos below: