Meat: Casual Latex Clothing
IN THE WEEKLY RUBRIC "NEW MARK" Wonderzine presents young designers and tells where and how you can buy their things. Our heroes this week are Bo Clareridge and Alice Pelleshi's girlfriends, who have proven that latex and rubber mini dresses can be served and sold as the most ordinary clothes.
The Meat brand began in 2012: the friends of Bo Claridge (tattooer) and Alice Pelleshi (photographer) were regulars in London fetish clubs, for whom they independently made indiscreet latex and rubber costumes. At some point, the girls decided to monetize their hobby and launched their own brand. This idea would have turned into another brand of Atsuko Kudo, but Bo and Alice chose a different approach. They mixed things from brilliant, tight-fitting materials with, yes, the best achievements of Internet culture. So, they put slogans "Expand your brain" and "Knowledge is power" on dresses with gothic fonts like Faktura or they cover the tops and skirts with icons from playing cards and the inscriptions "4D" and "3D". In their latest collection, FW-2014, Bo and Alice all refer us to schoolgirls - inscriptions from the locker rooms and from canisters from the childhood of both girls are put on crop tops, shorts and leggings.
This formula attracted Nicole Formichetti to Meat: he removed singer Azilia Banks in one of the first bows of the brand for ELLE. After the latex and rubber clothes, Claridge and Pelleshi put Rita Ora, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga on at once, but perhaps Brooke Candy looks the most organic in them. The rapper and stripper wears tight-fitting pink suits with afroshoes and multi-colored extended nails. Now the main adherent of the brand is stylist Georgia Pendlebury, who flashes in the latex of the brand in street style reports from fashion weeks. By the way, although Meat is an atypical catwalk brand, she also had a show at London Fashion Week. Perhaps, one of the main advantages of this brand’s clothing is quite affordable prices. It is understandable: latex and rubber - clothes are not casual, and they will be acquired, say so, infrequently.
We met at the institute and became best friends. They did not even think that someday we would have a common business. When we started to make things out of latex, Nikola Formichetti took one for ELLE, and then it became clear that we were worth something. It was decided to make each collection unlike the previous ones. We are proud that our brand is completely British. All things are tailored and sewn exclusively by hand. We hope Meat makes everyone understand that latex and rubber are not only fetish materials, they can look very stately and luxurious. It would be cool if Die Antwoord and Michelle Obama put our clothes on.
Where to buy things Meat
Tops and latex skirts can be bought in the official online store of the brand shop.meatclothing.co.uk and on the site of the New York project vfiles.com.