Meet Nicholas Daley, the vibey winner of GQ’s Designer Fashion Fund 2022

“To be sincere, I don’t keep in mind when I 1st satisfied Nicholas,” writes Don Letts through e mail, “but which is for the reason that I just cannot keep in mind very last 7 days. Possessing said that, I do keep in mind assembly Nicholas ‘cause it was like conference a younger version of myself, which was a excursion, ‘cause y’all know there is only one particular Don Letts!

“With audio n’ fashion as his weapons of option, Nicholas has carved out a distinctive room of his very own that speaks volumes about what it implies to be black n’ British,” Letts provides, “so I got very little but adore for the brother and evidently he likes me as well. Hey, it is all about flavor and he’s definitely bought some. The duality of our existence i.e becoming Black n’ British intended we had an automated relationship, so collaborating with Nicholas was quick, satisfying, and a good example of cross-generational creativeness.”

Together with his resourceful flexibility and, as Letts set it to me, a “love for a excellent bass line.” Daley is also an immensely talented designer. A Nicholas Daley garment is a one of a kind blend of his heritage, worldview, and myriad sensibilities. A wide and cropped Japanese-design trouser, or multi-pocketed workwear vest in Scottish tartan, or patchwork corduroy. The baker boy hats,  interpreted in leather-based with Mulberry. “Patchwork rasta tans with Mulberry!” he states with a chuckle and a seem of faint bemusement. Footwear have been produced with Tricker’s, a reference to his Midlands upbringing, even though he’s more recently looked in the direction of the quilting tradition of the American Deep South. It’s all refracted and place to a soundtrack, a film, a occasion, a space and feeling that you want to get associated with, or just bob together to. Clothes and an accompanying lifestyle that are exciting and lively and form of kinetic.

“It’s the way he channels his twin heritage into his style and design in these types of an reliable and interesting way that tends to make Nicholas these kinds of a great designer,” says Joe Warner, the Head of Shopping for & Trade at the influential Shoreditch retailer, Goodhood, one particular of the earliest merchants to decide up the manufacturer. “He can seamlessly find inspiration in subcultures and songs culture each aged and new and this sort of the concluded products is referential but wholly contemporary at the similar time.