HERESY / 'THE ARCHIVIST' SS24

HERESY nears its tenth year as a project for the experimentation and examination of folklore through fashion. What started from moonlighting in bedroom studios and London railway arches, has grown into a multi disciplinary label, that produces clothing, publications, events and artworks. HERESY have collaborated with a large and diverse range of practitioners, from museums to record labels.

Our focus, British folklore, has for the majority of the brand’s life, been a subject that exists on the fringes of society. Over the last couple of years British folklore has seen a surge in public interest, and has been celebrated by other brands and publications. This has opened up the language we use to a wider audience and allowed for refreshing collaboration.

For this season we’re continuing to craft our own folklore, an exercise in developing the narrative of HERESY and the world it has created over the last decade. Inspiration for the collection comes from a part of the British music scene between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. A spot in time when the British folk revival had surged and peaked, and a new response had started to emerge, with industrial and neo-folk pioneers like Throbbing Gristle, Death in June, and Current 93 taking traditional folkish tropes and remoulding them into something more experimental and severe. We have endeavoured to present this era in our collection by referencing traditional folk imagery, the sun and moon, handicraft, woodcut prints, and combined it with military silhouettes and prints, like those worn by the aforementioned musicians. As with previous seasons we have seen the collection as the wardrobe of a character of our making. An archivist, living in this time between a fading scene and an emerging one, collecting stories, trinkets and ideas from a dying British folk scene, but also starting to submerge themselves in the burgeoning sound and aesthetic of Industrial/Neofolk.