IN MEMORY OF JOE CASELY-HAYFORD 1956-2019

Until his death at the age of 62 this January, British designer Joe CaselyHayford was dedicated to one creative mantra: “You have to know the rules to break the rules.” This principle helped shape one of the most influential designers of his time, a boundarybreaker in every regard.

In 1974, at the age of 18, Kent-born Casely-Hayford dedicated himself to the study of England’s greatest clothing tradition, first at the Tailor & Cutter Academy and then in the Mount Street workshop of Doug Hayward. He studied at Central Saint Martins, then the ICA, before launching his own label, named KIT, in 1983. From the beginning, he set about breaking the rules he had spent years learning. His first collections were cut from upcycled military surplus tents – a conventional notion today but radical back then. A look in the V&A’s archive from 1984 comprises a deconstructable suit with double-fronted shirt that could be worn done-up by day and “distorted” for night. Casely-Hayford said he imagined this piece being worn at the Wag club on Wardour street, a counter-culture hub of the time.

Casely-Hayford’s mastery of the orthodox combined with a passion for unorthodoxy proved a winning formula. He showed in Paris and London – one show was attended by Diana, Princess of Wales – until 2005 before relaunching in 2009 in partnership with his son, Charlie. It was also a formula that won him an audience of high-profile clients with a similar interest in breaking the rules: rock stars. His first music-industry commission was dressing The Clash. Later he would also supply performance menswear for Lou Reed, Jarvis Cocker and Liam Gallagher, as well as acting as tour wardrobe designer for U2. When Bono featured on the cover of British Vogue, in 1992, he wore Casely-Hayford.

Casely-Hayford did not want to be defined through the prism of race: he said, “I was always classified as a ‘black designer’, so I had to struggle to work against that.” In the 1990s, he did begin to incorporate elements of Afr ican decorative tradition into his work, but again, with a keen appreciation and understanding of the form that was paired with a willingness to subvert it. Joe Casely-Hayford was one of the first black fashion designers to emerge on the scene in Britain – but this was only one aspect of the totality of his achievement.

A charming, considered, and highlycultured man, Casely-Hayford would have been too modest to accept being called a ‘pioneer,’ but that is what he was: a br illiant breaker of r ules.