RATUS RATUS pink jumper by SIBLING
Profile
Family sounds twee and Brothers and A Sister a Melrose Place spin off. They may not be related but Sibling share a sideways perspective on the future of menswear. When Joe Bates, Sid Bryan and Cozette McCreery came together in 2008 they proved there’s more to knitwear than beige pullovers and your grandmothers annual reindeer-covered delight.
A bolt from the blue they first appeared at London Fashion Week joining forces with Saville Rows Norton & Sons, featuring cashmere jumbo cable knits and fur trimmed cardigans. Animal inspired creations followed in their debut collection of larger than life ram jumpers and pony-head sweaters with manes of real horse-hair, all swiftly snapped up by BEAMS in Tokyo.
Having worked alongside fashion giants such as Alexander McQueen, Giles Deacon, Lanvin, Jonathan Saunders and Bella Freud has ensured the knit-wits are well known amongst the movers and shakers of the fashion industry and collaborations with a host of illustrators, artists, djs and musicians has only added kudos to their growing distinction.
Born out of a “desire to give knitwear for men a kick up the arse,” SIBLING are the industry’s innovative, unhinged dream team; a technical wizard, a fashion designer and a Boom Box legend and walking fashion black-book, they’re a match made in creative heaven.
With school blazers tipped in tangerine, a knitted take on the classic trench and even ‘leather’ biker jackets, laminated in black metal foil, the trio have proved knitwear doesn't have to look ‘wooly.’
An uncompromising pallet of fluorescent orange, neon pink and lurid shades of yellow are sure to liven up even the most depressing of wardrobes, however, the three dimensional silhouettes, crochet skulls, embroidered rats and leopard twin-sets are not for the faint hearted.
Filling a void in menswear, it’s yarn play.
Insight
SS: Have you ever experienced an 'over the moon' feeling? Please discuss.
Cozette McCreery: My over the moon feeling was being at the launch of Gaultier's Madame in Paris and meeting the man himself.
I'd been invited along with Matthew Stone, The-O and others as Richard Mortimer's Boom Box RIP guests with the sole reason that we can to quote Pink: get this party started.
Anyway I had decided as I was in Paris and it was Gaultier to wear the SIBLING sequined Breton in homage.
Standing outside quaffing pink coloured alcohol and eating matching sweets with menswear designer James Long he spotted Monsieur JPG and went 'Oh hello!' and JPG came over and told me that he'd seen me from upstairs and liked my sweater 'Who is it by?' So I told him and he replied 'If this is you then YOU are very good..!' and there you go: over the moon doesn't even describe it. In fact I got on Eurostar the next day, got to my old office and handed in my notice.
Words: Sarah Bonser
Photography: Axel Hoedt