“There’s this sort of clichéd idea of the British seaside. Taking our public school uniform codes, mashing them up with the seaside and with Brighton Rock, which I studied at A-Level.” Steven Stokey-Daley shot his S.S. Daley spring menswear collection on a day trip to Margate on the Kent coast, on a suitably showery day to capture the very English charm of his cheerful-in-all-weathers collection.
For a start, S.S. Daley’s many fans will surely fix on the shorts action: short-shorts that appear to be something between running shorts, boxers, and maybe pajama bottoms. From the young designer who brought voluminous trousering into men’s fashion in 2020 this might qualify as something of a volte-face. Not at all, as he explains: “I’ve gone back to a lot of the research on various vintage school sports uniforms that I did for my graduate collection at Westminster University. There’s a lot of images when they’re doing boxing and wrestling, in jersey all-in-ones with super short-shorts,” he said. “It’s a sexier side of menswear. And, you know, a lot of friends and people around me were pairing S.S. Daley with short-shorts this past summer.”
Growing his range and his repertoire (while designing this collection, he was also putting together his first women’s show) is down to Stokey-Daley’s innate sense of what’s useful on the one hand, and accessibly quirky on the other. Call to witness his fish-print parka, sea-gull beaded top, or the ornithological silk scarf-pattern shirt. The waterproof fish-tail parka came to mind, he related, from looking at 1960s mods, as seen in the 2011 movie remake of Graham Greene’s classic Brighton Rock. The anti-hero gangster character Pinkie Brown’s shirt and tie styling also got collaged into the narrative, along with Stokey-Daley’s childhood memories of Northern seaside holidays, and a cache of souvenirs inherited from his partner Leo’s grandmother.
“She was just a marvelous lady full of craft and imagination who collected things. Before she passed, she sent Leo a pin with ‘I may not be rich, but I’m a hell of a tap-dancer’ on it.” The motto became an emblem on a flocked sweatshirt—yet another in the series of the cheery collectibles that keep fans entertained, and shopping.
Narratives aside, he said this year has been about “diving deeper into simpler garments, and providing sort of complex detail that the customer can engage with on the hanger,” as well as figuring out how to lighten up trad-looking materials to work across hotter climates. That applies to the ivory trench coat, made in a lightweight Japanese broadcloth minutely chain-stitched with red edging, as if made from an old piece of English bed-linen. Or the lightweight Tattersall check tour jacket, and new iterations of his knit jersey singlets with their distinctive side-bow fastenings. Look closely, and you’ll spot the branding in true S.S. Daley-style vintage-looking labels, here and there. “Feel Good Casuals” it reads. Just about sums up the friendly attraction of Stokey-Daley’s burgeoning appeal.