An Interview with WORKING

We sat down with William Kroll and Robert Newman to talk through their collaborative project WORKING. Together they have been attempting to ‘lift the hood’ on the design process and answer the question of what a designer actually does. As always, our conversation took unexpected turns discussing hermit crabs, fat suits and the Beano of all things.

Rob and William sourcing fabrics for WORKING Book 4.

How did WORKING come about?

RN: We have been friends for about 15 years. William was my tutor on our denim project in my first year at university. I had been interested in Tender, even at that time, considering I was quite young. I had been into it for a while and I thought “bloody hell this is what fashion is? You just meet the people who make the stuff”. I then scouted some locations and we did some shoots on Tender and various bits and pieces.

We both love clothing, especially in the part of the industry I work, it's hard to find a perspective on clothing construction as opposed to the look/style/silhouette which is also still important but I am really interested in the construction. We shared that perspective. Then about 4 years ago after I moved to Glasgow we ended up working on some bags for Tender. I have done quite a lot of bags for other brands. It turned out quite convenient because my neighbour was actually able to do the construction for the bags.

WK: We thought it’d be fun to do a product together so we did this bag. It made sense for it to go into Tender, then we had a really good time together. I had never worked formally with a designer before but really enjoyed it.

We discussed the idea of consultancy for other brands, which we have both done. We put a sort of portfolio together – we passed around a lot of ideas and put together WORKING - just as a project not necessarily to sell it, but just to see. It started looking really good and we thought it was something we could do as a ‘brand’, rather than a portfolio product. 

WORKING has its collections in what are called ‘books’, can you tell us more about that?

WK: We didn’t want to commit to it being a seasonal thing, instead doing things that seem interesting when they are interesting. Each product has a work number. Even the website has a number; it is “work 5” and the logo should actually have a number too.

RN: The logo can be ‘work zero’.

WORKING is a process then…

WK: We are doing all this by text and video meetings, a really long way away from each other (I am in Pennsylvania and Rob is in Glasgow) and we get together when we can. 

RN: There’s a lot in it that has shaped it and the process of WORKING. We have both worked alone a lot because I don’t want to be in London, New York or Milan or whatever, which has led to working alone and visiting clients. In essence, it’s a singular vision but it’s like two hermits coming out into the world. There’s a real element of working collaboratively. This is the united work. 

WK: Like two hermit crabs sharing a shell…

RN: Everything is shaped by what we can do in our meetings 2-3 times a year, or driving around the UK frantically to visit suppliers, what we can do by calls or WhatsApp. We are still learning that process. It is still in flux.

WK: A lot of times brands talk of production or stories behind a fabric or someone interesting who can do something, which is a big way of how Tender works and also Middle Distance - really ideas based in production, but with WORKING we are exploring what the other parts of the clothing process are and how they are worked on. Trying to put a spotlight on what clothing is, it’s an onward process.

RN: Not trying to make empirical points on the fashion industry but often the way a wardrobe is, is relatively generic - often there is a culture of “this person designed this shirt” when it is just a generic shirt. There is also so much emphasis these days on “non-design”. This then makes us ask what the role for the designers actually is. WORKING is putting a mirror up to ourselves as to what we do as designers. This allows us to almost critique each other’s processes and techniques and by association critiquing ourselves.

WK: I guess maybe we act as each other’s tutors given that we have both taught.

Or therapists…

RN: We are both tutors in another life. My experience of fashion school was that you are torn to pieces then rebuilt as a designer and you are hankering out for advice from your tutors. It’s a testament to my own school that I am still friends with many of the tutors. Even when I had to cost one of my first consultancy jobs, William was the first person I turned to. It’s been quite some time that you have been working together, in one way or another then. 

Given that you both usually work alone, how is it working with each other? 

RN: I had left uni wanting to work for myself because of the freedom, which led me into consultancy roles for other brands, so providing an outside perspective for other companies, but my motivation for WORKING is to be authentic about talking about the design process. Our WhatsApp acts as a kind of archive for photos, certain words. 

WK: We like each other’s brands and respect each other’s decisions. We are not micro-managing each other. I am happy to trust that it will all be right, we are both in safe hands. This is my first experience of this, but we have put together something that works quite well because of that. 

Rob said art schools spit you out with a particular way of looking at things. I was in a similar position when I came out and couldn’t figure out how to do VAT, but I couldn’t ask anyone because you’re competitors, and often you didn’t really share suppliers with your contemporaries so it’s quite a relief and nice to share that thing kind of openly and on an equal level. On the subject of being each other’s therapists, mental health-wise it’s good to share things and it has come at a really good time for me – it gives perspective.

How would you describe WORKING?

RN: It feels more definitive to describe it as the process than what it is. It changes in our heads. I suppose it has a menswear-world system of references but more loosely held, it’s not constrained. It has an element of eccentricity. We often find ourselves talking about characters like the Marquess of Bath. Things like the playful colours and pointy hats come into that eccentricity but perhaps embedded within WORKING is that it’s hard to grasp what it is.  

WK: As a tutor when you view people’s projects they are similar, but as a student you think what you’re doing is completely different but that similar thread can always be seen. Quite often it’s hard to acknowledge or explain (especially if you’re self-deprecating) the things you can do quite easily or see if something makes sense without explaining why that is. Even with Nubes I see what you do, and I know it makes sense but I can’t explain why. And it’s the same with WORKING. We can feel if something is right and that will evolve.

RN: We are so often exchanging images and it’s so easy to often say “this piece is Middle Distance, that is Tender, or this is WORKING”, and then we realise if it’s a particular fabric or construction method then its home could be in Tender or Middle Distance but the more we do it the clearer those things become. We are feeling our way through it.

WK: Another thing is, when I designed for other people in my experience, so much of the time is spent making things look cool or making it extremely clear what you mean by a reference. But we can send each other an image of something uncool or irrelevant but we each get from that what we feel is relevant. 

A bit of telepathy then…

RN: I think you sent me a photo of a fat suit recently. 

WK: We were talking about dog-attack suits, which are amazing but Rob knew what I was referencing.

RN: We learned how to understand each other’s language. So it’s almost like working on your own because you know how the other is working. 

WK: It's sort of learning to work together.

[WK then produced a book sent to them by a customer who thought this was their main reference point for WORKING but alas no, just a cosmic coincidence, rather “Jungian” as RN put it.]

WK: So the WORKING brand would be the answer to the question in this book “what does a fashion designer do?”

Do you source fabrics differently?

RN: Not really. Traditionally a lot of people source fabrics at big fairs. We consciously avoid that. We have a huge amount of deadstock we can access. Most of our fabrics we try to source or treat in a way that wouldn't show up somewhere else. Not that appearing different is a priority but more that the fabrics are interesting and have their own character.

WK: Part of sourcing fabrics is us both understanding what we are each looking at. Something doesn’t need to be cool for us, it needs to be interesting. As an example, the Loft Jacket has mesh inside and we were initially looking at tennis-net manufacturers and seeing where we could use that sort of stuff. The deadstock fabrics are available at production scale for us, because our production is quite small, so we can pick and choose with these. 

Tell us about SKEWed by WORKING.

RN: It was the catalyst for us to get off our asses and start this. Our friend Akira at Homestead Ltd, who sells both Middle Distance and Tender in Japan, works with Edwin in Japan to produce clean and pure versions of classic designs. With WORKING SKEWed we are more loosely working with the denim language and applying the production methods available. It's playing with jeans loosely in the way we play with menswear loosely at WORKING.

WK: Edwin in Japan has an amazing history. It is one of the first Japanese denim brands and goes back to the 40s. They have their own ecosystem, do their own weaving, sewing, finishing which is unusual today. Edwin also have licences for Lee and made the ‘Buddy Lee’ designs. We were able to tap into those patterns which Edwin have in their archive and build on those as a starting point.

SKEWed was invented by Akira and we were the first ones to do WORKING SKEWed. It sits alongside our main thing and is a way of working our ideas in and how we get jeans made - the working relationships. 

WORKING SKEWed jacket from Book 3.

The word nuance derives from the Latin for clouds – ‘nubes’. What do clouds mean to you? WK already gave what clouds meant to him in our interview with Tender.

RN: The Bash Street Kids ascending into a fight.

[The mention of the Bash Street Kids brought up some painful memories for OQ – a bashtreet kids tshirt of his dyed pink with blood following a childhood bicycle accident!]

Is there anything you collect?

RN: I collect clothes. I just moved studios to have a bigger space to put all my stuff but I have a pretty big archive. Lots of Stone Island, Supreme, military. It’s not curated in any way. I tried to but then it had weird mountaineering jackets and stuff and some real crusty stuff in there.

WK: I collect cookbooks.