TexSelect 2018: Meet the Judges, Michael Angove
http://www.texselect.org.uk/texselect-2018-meet-the-judges-michael-angove/
Fine artist and textile designer Michael Angove talks about British gardens, the phoenix mentality, and how to make it as a new designer. Michael joins the TexSelect 2018 judging panel in July to select this year’s prize winners.
Welsh-born Michael Angove is the personification of his minimalist-meets-maximalist aesthetic. Just after offering a critical analysis of the design industry today, he launches into a lively story about how a scorpion once landed on his leg in Italy. As fate would have it, he’s a Scorpio himself, so he resolved to include the exotic creature, within a British landscape, in his own designs. “I’m very much an extension of my work,’ he explains. ‘My designs are flamboyant and fun – but my fine art work is much more cerebral; sometimes witty, sometimes quiet.”
He’s a TexSelect veteran – initially participating when he graduated with a BA from Winchester in 1995, and again after his Royal College of Art MA in 2000. Since then, Michael has collaborated with a broad variety of brands from Agent Provocateur to Jo Malone London, producing larger-than-life chinoiseries, which always feature a hidden surprise. In 1995, he scooped the Liberty Print Prize, as well as the Marks & Spencer Breaking New Ground prize, which gave him excellent recognition, but, most importantly, led to his meeting people he’s still friends with today. While spending some time living in Italy, Michael worked for Jean Paul Gaultier and Hugo Boss before returning to England, being talent spotted by Liberty, and founding his own company. He sells his hand-drawn fine art worldwide from Hong Kong to Miami and now resides in the Wiltshire countryside, taking an occasional break from his busy work schedule to walk his Jack Russell, Audrey.
Michael’s maximalist designs are full of colour and life, whether it’s the brilliant red of roses set against a pink background in his Jo Malone packaging, or the chinoiserie of a fir tree crossed with Berberis thorn for his Agent Provocateur wallpaper. The idea of hiding something in his designs so that they tell a story – “like leaving a little breadcrumb trail” – was born out of creating wallpaper. “I wanted to have a wallpaper people didn’t get bored with… so I hid into it the beak of a bird or antenna of a bug… People phone me up two years later, and say, ‘I just found this incredible beetle on my wallpaper that I’ve never seen before!’ ”
His minimalist artwork, meanwhile, is influenced by his Welsh upbringing in the coastal town of Barry, an “honest, and humble and simple existence”, as he puts it. He’s currently working on a solo show of drawings of simple, Georgian articles to be exhibited in November – from sugar crushers to brooches. “This isn’t just an ordinary sugar crusher made out of glass… it’s 200 years old, it might have fed 100 people or 1000, who knows?” he muses. He wants his drawings, like his textile designs, to tell a story.
Michael is inspired by those, like him, who “have got that strange, quirky, British sense of individual design and style.” They include Elizabeth Blackadder, a Scottish watercolourist, as well as Grayson Perry and Alexander McQueen. “There’s definitely a sense of Britishness in my own designs… I always refer back to this moment in my childhood, playing in the garden and climbing up lilac trees, finding bird’s nests and butterflies. My design work is hugely inspired by British gardens, as they’re unlike any other gardens in the world.”
His BA in textile design was very analogue. “I just had a pot of paint and a toolkit of materials. By the time I did my MA at the Royal College of Art, digital designing had really come on board… everything I did at the Royal was 100% digital.” Judging by his process, starting with 3D scans of flowers or insects – often found in his own garden – you wouldn’t have thought that he’d ever had any trouble with technology. “Back in the day, at the RCA, we had to be taught how to switch on a computer… I learned to crawl, drawing, and then learned how to run, being on a computer.”
The RCA’s logo is a phoenix, and the “rising from the ashes” idea has influenced Michael personally. “It’s that kind of mentality that you can always do better, that you can always revisit your work. That’s a part of me now, as well.”
What advice would Michael offer to young designers today? “Persevere. And try everything… digital and analogue are two different worlds, but every good designer needs a balance of both of them.” And, most importantly, he says, know your value. “Really, good design affects everything. It’s the car you drive, it’s the clothes you wear, it’s the ergonomics of the toothbrush that you use in the morning… Right now, there’s a lack of understanding about it. But we’re here to change that.”
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The Illusion Shattered: Fashion’s Mental Health Problem
Outwardly, the fashion industry is portrayed as glamorous and exciting, a vision that attracts many young people to work in it. However high-profile incidents of mental illness and substance abuse affecting many of the most famous names in the design world suggest a different reality. Are ‘tortured artists’ inherently drawn to the industry – or does it create them?
In February 2010, Alexander McQueen was found dead in his Mayfair flat. One of Britain’s most successful designers had hung himself, sending shockwaves within the fashion industry and the outside world alike. To those in the know, his death was not altogether surprising. His psychiatrist, Dr Stephen Pereira, had diagnosed McQueen with mixed anxiety and depressive disorder several years prior. The suicide of close friend and stylist Isabella Blow and the death of his mother had had a significant effect on his psyche. However, McQueen, Pereira explained, also ‘Felt very pressured by his work’, the ‘Double-edged sword’ that brought him great pain as well as joy.
McQueen’s death was not an isolated incident. In June of this year, Kate Spade became the third high-profile fashion designer to take her own life, after L’Wren Scott’s passing in 2014. Justine Picardie, long-term editor of Harper’s Bazaar, admits: ‘There is a very dark side to the life of a designer… The reason clothes are potent is because of what they are covering up’.
According to a survey by the US Centre for Disease Control, the fashion industry ranks seventh on the list of industries most commonly associated with mental illness, while the Mental Health Foundation reports that those in creative careers such as fashion are 25% more likely to experience mental health problems. From Marc Jacobs’ two visits to rehab to John Galliano’s racist 2011 rant, examples of mental distress in the fashion industry are numerous.
In the words of Aristotle, ‘No great genius has existed without a strain of madness’. Are creative people simply prone to mental health issues? According to a 2015 study by Icelandic genetics company deCODE, writers, painters, dancers and artists are 25% more likely to carry genes for schizophrenic and bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, ‘eccentricity and edginess are positively encouraged in fashion… so some who have a propensity towards mental illness may be attracted to the field,’ says Victoria Tischler, a psychologist at the University of West London. Creatives also have a keen eye for detail and have tendencies to replay things in their minds – particularly mistakes – while depression is amplified in those who ruminate on their thoughts. Creative people tend to take more risks and persist in the face of rejection, and they struggle to stick to conventional schedules and find the pressures of deadlines and budgets difficult. According to Nancy C Andreasen, a neuroscientist who spent thirty years studying writers, these “creative” personality traits ‘lead to psychic pain, which may manifest itself as depression or anxiety’.
But a predisposition to mental illness is only part of the story. The high-pressure, high-speed nature of the fashion world can push people over the edge. From the public to the media to the designers’ own perfectionism, the fashion world thrives on the judgement and approval of others. Some designers relish this: an anonymous young fashion designer, contributing to an i-D article on mental health, explained: ‘That’s also when I’m happiest, when it’s scary, when you’re presenting yourself to the world and waiting to see if they like it.. it’s almost sadomasochistic, I enjoy the fear.’
However, other young designers lament the impractical workload. Laura Fanning, student of MA Fashion at Central Saint Martins explains that she works on her designs from 9am until 10pm six days a week (the seventh, she works a part time job), and has a ‘terrible quality of life’. Fashion, according to Caryn Franklin, fashion commentator and professor of Diversity at Kingston University ‘Expects 24 hours interest and availability… that can impact a designer’s sense of serenity and balance’. Many designers create a minimum of six collections per year – two ready to wear, two couture, two cruise. This is amplified if the fashion house designs for both women and men. Several designers have turned their back on the fast pace of ready-to-wear: while Viktor& Rolf chose to focus only on couture, Azzedine Alaia simply released his runway collections when he felt they were ready.
The problem is also in the industry’s strict hierarchical nature. ‘The older generation doesn’t see a problem with treating people badly… I hope our generation can be more community driven,’ says Fanning. It has always been a top-down sort of industry, but those at the bottom of the heap in fashion often shoulder a far heavier workload than in many other industries, while facing little (if any) reward. Victoria Tischler notes that ‘the high pressure to be original and innovative and to work excessive hours, the constant pressure of the industry to be the “next big thing”, the culture of working around the clock and therefore not getting enough rest put mental health at risk’. Social media has only made the pace of the industry even faster, creating a constant demand for a regular stream of new things – a pressure a designer always feels heavily. A heavy workload directly correlates with substance abuse: a 2015 study found that employees exceeding the EU working limit of 48 hours per week were more likely to consume harmful levels of alcohol.
The fashion industry sometimes seems to glorify these problems. Karl Lagerfeld famously commented: ‘if you are not a good bullfighter, don’t enter the arena. Fashion is a sport now – you have to run’. Designer Rick Owens has also stated that he doesn’t see a problem with encouraging competitiveness: ‘I tend to look at these things as evolutionary. I feel stimulated… busy hands are happy hands’. Getting very little sleep during Fashion Week (often, Fashion Month) is shrugged off as being the norm. Perhaps it makes the industry exciting. According to Sunna Naseer of Not Just a Label, ‘There is a tendency to glamourise unhealthy ideals: from burnt-out designers and underweight models to drinking, taking drugs and partying hard’. Extremes of various kinds are more acceptable not only in the fashion but in the creative industries more widely. Meanwhile, the hardships – from lack of sleep to excessive hours – are simply seen as an intrinsic necessity.
Fashion schools could also do more to protect their students, as the culture of over-working is also prevalent early on in the designers’ careers. Naseer, an ex-fashion design student at the Condé Nast College, admits that ‘by the third year, our tutors were eagerly telling us to forget about sleep’. Students felt pressure to constantly create and perform, making them ‘feel guilty if [they] weren’t working every second of the day’. Often, this leads to dependence on substances to keep them alert and functioning: Ambel Barnard admits that over half of her class at FEDISA couldn’t function without Ritalin, a stimulant used to treat ADHD, and she ‘almost lost a few friends due to their depression from the stresses of the course’. Some do still see the fight to be the best as a positive, as a student who wished to remain anonymous explained: ‘The pressure separates those who REALLY want it from those who are dabbling or simply not cut out for it’.
However, at what point, asks Emma Davidson of DAZED, ‘does “tough love” intended to get the best work from students and the designers they turn into become akin to bullying or abuse’? Is it when a young student tries to take their own life due to the pressures of the industry, as one did at Antwerp in March this year? That’s not to say that many students don’t suffer from their own personal demons, as those at Antwerp undoubtedly did. However, they should not also be trained simply to “survive” in this industry. As student Cristiana Alagna explained, students are ‘trained to accept the fact that it’s OK to be emotionally, physically and psychologically broken’. The pressure to “survive” carries into in to the working world, when designers are forced to accommodate the demands of the luxury conglomerates they work for, as well as pressure to deliver from the public. John Galliano commented on his time at Dior to Vanity Fair: ‘I had all these voices in my head, asking so many questions… I was afraid to say no. I thought it showed weakness.’ Perhaps others in the industry are also driven by fear. According to Rosalind Franklin, ‘The desire for membership… and the attraction of working in fashion is very strong… there is a fear of loss of status and security if someone speaks out’.
McQueen’s darkest work, including collections such as the Highland Rape, often had the best reception. He constantly pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in fashion, and so stylists, buyers, press and the public demanded to hear what was next. However, he also drove himself to explore his dark side. Perhaps he also believed that his best work, his genius, emerged from his darkest thoughts. Perhaps it was his own desire to be successful. ‘My shows are about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It’s for the excitement and the goosebumps. I want heart attacks. I want ambulances,’ he once commented. While the outside world was not responsible, it was certainly a contributing factor in encouraging him to act on his darkest impulses. After all, it is these dark impulses that eventually led to his death.
The industry isn’t perfect, but it is changing. After a slow start compared to other high-pressure industries – employees in banking are protected by the City Mental Health Alliance of 2013, for example – fashion has begun to implement measures to protect its workers. Management consultant Fabian Hirose introduced workshops throughout London aiming to prevent “burnout” in fashion. Last month, Humans of Fashion, a non-profit organisation based in New York, launched an app offering sexual abuse victims in fashion free counselling. Unfiltered Society, meanwhile, is a fashion brand that donates £10 from each sale to a mental health charity of your choice. And events like the London College of Fashion’s panel “Mental Health in the Creative Industries” are crucial for raising awareness of the issues. But there is always room for improvement, on a larger scale.
The fashion sector needs to move fast. Depression is set to be the leading illness in the world by 2030, according to the World Health Organisation, and the effect industry pressures on young, impressionable minds merits further research and action.
The clock is ticking.
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