Edwin Mohney: Inflatable Swimming Pools To Dressing Beyoncé

Hailing from bucolic New York State, fashion designer Edwin Mohney’s Central Saint Martins graduate collection received much attention during its debut at London Fashion Week AW18. An unexpected jolt among the line-up, Mohney’s memorable and satirical series of looks, which took on modernity with an unrestrained sense of humour, comprised condom dresses, an inflatable swimming pool outfit, rubber chicken hats, and Trump mask shoes, which the designer dubbed “Trumpettos”.

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Expanding on his influences, Mohney told Dazed: “A lot of it came from reading about how we would summarise what our current climate is. You have modernism and postmodernism and I was also reading a lot about capitalism, then at one point someone mentioned this idea of modernity. To me, that’s the idea of not being defined by any past… your identity isn’t defined by anything. I would do this, then I realised I was doing something I didn’t realise was really relevant.”

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Whilst in London, Edwin met his boyfriend, fellow designer Liam Johnson, as well as many of the capital’s other burgeoning creative talents including Reba Maybury, Richard Malone, Matty Bovan, Gareth Wrighton and James Theseus Buck of Rottingdean Bazaar, all of whom Mohney describes as friends and inspirations. Refining his technical skills, Mohney interned with London menswear designer Craig Green, followed by an eclectic mix of placements at Ashish, Koché in Paris and later, Bernhard Willhelm in Los Angeles.

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Discussing his move to London, Mohney said in an interview with i-D last year, “Where I’m from in the States, it’s very rural. So when I arrived at Central Saint Martins it felt like I was suddenly with all these people who are ‘in on it’, you know? When you come from somewhere isolated, to all of a sudden be surrounded by people who think like you, it gives you the confidence to keep going in one direction with your ideas.”

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More recently, for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s OTR II video, shot in Jamaica and co-styled by the newly appointed Editor-at-large of i-D, Ib Kamara, Mohney created a custom lace suit in a striking combination of colours, with sculptural power shoulders for the singer. The young designer also made an intricately embellished jacket in white for the video’s much-talked-about wedding look. Currently back in education, focusing on his fashion MA at Central Saint Martins, be sure to keep a close eye on Edwin Mohney in the coming months.

Feature image via @edwin_mohney