There was no show from Oliver Spencer in London this season, but he’ll be back in June. Instead came the chance to catch up with the designer at his two-store hub on Lamb’s Conduit Street, which after Savile Row and Jermyn Street has become London’s third prime men’s-threads thoroughfare (and very possibly the best). As with a few other labels this season—London was too early for some, and others have co-ed plans for February—the show hiatus created a serendipitous space for conversation.
Spencer’s latest collectsion was sparked by a trip to Cody, Wyoming, that he took with his wife, Nancy (a New Yorker), and their three sons. This most English of designers was blown away by the culture and approach of the place. “They dress impeccably. They love their land, and their animals and their place. They are absolutely not rednecks; Cody gave me a lot of faith in America. So what I wanted to do this season was to deliver an Englishman’s take, an updated modern wardrobe thinking about the guys in that great part of the world.”
The result was not at all literal in that there were no Western shirts or blanket coats or all that Ralph-owned ranch-y stuff. There were hints of Americana in the (poly/acrylic) sherpa lined pieces, sure, and echoes that were both Western but not exclusive to it in the checks, but more broadly this was a collectsion about attitude: properness of an individual nature, with a healthy disdain for convention. Spencer’s deconstructed semi-formal cord suiting and judo pant shapes in heritage fabrics are a marvelous and slightly ironic uniform for the modern male who finds himself roaming on the range of a portmanteau career in the creative industries—and who relishes not being institutionalized. This was the connection between the spirit of Cody encountered by Spencer and the output of a designer who is so justly appreciated by those who know.
