bodil blain shares coffee and creative small talk with…

the young fashion designer taking menswear to the max

So...you don’t drink coffee?

Unfortunately not! I’m very into tea.

Where does your creative spark come from?

I’ve always been into photography. I think it’s that emotional connection to people, or to the way people are represented, that grounds what I do, and was something I was aware of growing up.

How did you get into fashion?

It felt like a way to turn how I see the world into something tangible. It was always going to be something academic or something to do with art, and I suppose I’ve just tried to marry both things together.

Have you considered designing for women?

The way I design menswear requires having distance, space to project an image. Once you understand that approach, you can apply it to women as well. I have a small womenswear collection and will be doing more.

How do you find inspiration?

Usually it starts from literature. I’ll have some books or poems in mind. I’ll then build a visual world around that and then a musical world until I have this complete sensory world that’s a hybrid of different things. For each collection, we also do a short film with Harley Weir. We do a research trip where we revisit some of the ideas within the collection in context. The films are quite open – they unfold on these trips. It’s an important part of my process, having these freeform moments that can escalate and inspire other things.

If you weren’t a designer, what would you be?

Maybe a curator? I like bringing people together and not having a specific outcome.

What would be your perfect day in London?

I like going to the Stuart Hall Library in Shoreditch. It’s a niche archive, which is interesting. I’d probably also go to local food markets and galleries; I just saw the Michael Armitage show at the South London Gallery in Camberwell, which was amazing.