Do artists have a more liberated attitude to clothes? Fashion journalist Charlie Porter talks about his fascination with what painters, sculptors and photographers choose to wear to work in the studio
The fashion writer Charlie Porter has always been a compulsive reader of the language of clothes, his eye drawn irresistibly to the colour of a stranger’s coat; to the cut of their suit or the logo on their trainers. “I think everyone’s a bit like that,” he says. “We all do it, all the time. Clothes are information. A policeman’s uniform tells you what he does. If you feel threatened or out of place, it’s often clothing that gives you this sense first. But because I’ve worked in fashion, I suppose I’m particularly attuned to it.” Is the sartorial ticker tape in his head a bit exhausting sometimes? “Not exactly.” He laughs. “But the pandemic has given me quite a nice rest from it.”
I meet Porter, the author of an eclectic but invigorating new book about artists’ clothes, in the public garden at Arnold Circus, near his home in Shoreditch, east London – and, naturally, my first question has to do with his own look. Never mind his painters and sculptors. What is he wearing today? Porter regards himself as “quite a mess, usually,” but yes, he admits to having put some thought into his look this morning. “This is by Craig Green, a young London designer,” he says, of a heavy cotton jacket in Yves Klein blue that’s decorated with mirror work. Opening it, he reveals an off-white artist’s smock from Labour and Wait, hipster purveyor of all that is functional, from aprons to watering cans, which he favours for the freedom of movement it permits as well as for its “space-age” collar. This is matched to a pair of striped trousers whose provenance he can’t quite remember. Finally, there are his loafers, which are Gucci and about 15 years old.
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