Art Attack-ed Denim with Grazia and Simeon Farrar!
Yesterday afternoon in the window of the Donna Ida pop-up store in Chelsea, classic blue jeans were transformed into art thanks to Mr Simeon Farrar. The London based designer who is the brains behind Black Score tees, moved his workshop into the shop front for the afternoon to splatter jeans and t-shirts with neon paint.
Simeon took to the floor to screen print electric stars and snakeskin and (with some help from Donna Ida) scrunch handfuls of paint into denim. They 'destroyed' everything from white skinny jeans to slouchy boyfriends with look-at-me paint - giving a whole new meaning to 'distressed jeans.'
But this makeshift workspace wasn't too different from how Simeon usually works, as he told us 'because I come from a fine art background my main way of working is to stick it on the floor and get painting. But this is the first time I’ve done jeans.'
Simeon said of customising: 'Everything we do is relatively bespoke and totally hand done. I want that running throughout the whole brand so doing this is just perfect because they are like a piece of art. When you look at the rail it’s like looking through a rack of paintings.' He added: 'Denim lends itself to the distressed look. It's like something you would have worn at Woodstock, but they totally fit for now.'
Donna and Simeon's fashion friendship goes back years, as Donna started buying his tees six years ago. 'I just saw it in you. I saw the potential that you would one day understand marbling,' Donna teased.
London's jeans guru said of Simeons' painted denim, 'If you have a pair of jeans you haven’t worn for ages you can suddenly give them a whole new life and wear them again - you can reinvent your wardrobe. When I was growing up in Australia I would rip out the knees of the jeans, get floral fabric and do a blanket stitch around it.'
At Grazia Daily we obviously wanted to have our own go, so we got a pair of slouchy Current Elliotts splattered in white, yellow, pink and green paint. So how should we wear our art-attacked, neon-tastic denim? Simeon and Donna both agreed that they have to be paired with a classic white tee. Donna advised that we should 'let the jeans stand out, that’s the art so then you just want to keep the rest as a canvas.'
Grazia Daily Emma's customised jeans
It's the personal touch which makes them so special as you could pick the exact colours, prints and level of 'paint-splattering' you wanted. Simeon said 'I like to do it it just for you. So when you wear it you remember this day and it lives on more than just a pair of jeans in your wardrobe. It brings back a memory of a certain time, which adds a new dimension.'
This might be the first time Simeon has printed jeans, but he reckons he can customise just about anything. The designer has been customising in stores in Japan for years where he has been asked to print everything from Vespas to parka jackets. Farrar told us 'Once I had a six year old boy that wanted a screen print on the back of his t-shirt so we had him lie down on the floor and we put the screen on his back. So if we can customise a six year old boy, we can customise anything.'
Want to see how Simeon created the neon-tastic denim? Watch the video below to watch the jeans get well and truly destroyed...
The Donna Ida Sale Pop Up will be open through out May at 171 Draycott Avenue, and the Donna Ida flagship is now open at 106 Draycott Avenue.
