{"id":60765,"date":"2015-11-20T12:36:36","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T12:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=60765"},"modified":"2015-11-20T12:36:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T12:36:36","slug":"fashion-finds-force-bobby-abley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2015\/11\/20\/fashion-finds-force-bobby-abley\/","title":{"rendered":"Fashion Finds the Force: Bobby Abley"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Force Awakens has already got a grasp over geeks worldwide. Selfridges get in on the action with a collaboration with ten of London’s young talents.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n In support of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, ten of London’s best young designer’s have come together to create a\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> capsule collection to celebrate the latest release in the saga,\u00a0The Force Awakens<\/em>.\u00a0British fashion designers Agi & Sam, Bobby Abley, Christopher Raeburn, J.W. Anderson, Nasir Mazhar, Peter Pilotto, Phoebe English, Preen and Thomas Tait all signed up to the collaboration with Disney.<\/span><\/p>\n With each creating two commercial pieces to go on sale in Selfridges (in stores now) and two pieces to be auctioned off, the result is a wardrobe for die-hard fans as well as fashion followers. Get online on the 26th to try your hand at buying what’s sure to become an iconic piece of Star Wars<\/em> memorabilia via auction.<\/a><\/p>\n We met Bobby Abley, who’s already dabbled in the sci-fi-meets-fashion world to talk about his designs, love for R2D2 and living on the moon.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n What made you want to be a part of this collaboration?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Well my last collection was all Star Wars <\/i>so I\u2019m obviously still in that zone I guess because production is still happening. It\u2019s for a really good cause, it\u2019s a charity project which I hate to say, I haven\u2019t really got involved in charity before so it was nice. It feels good to do something and it was quite easy for me to do because I just did that collection with loads of Star Wars<\/i> references so it felt quite easy to do and quite good knowing it was for charity.<\/span><\/p>\n Who would you be if you were in Star Wars<\/i>?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s so many people in this movie! Ok, I would like to be based on a look, going to the first prequel, the villain was called Darth Maul and he had a red and black tattooed face with horns and I just liked his cloak, I liked him visually, I think I was a bit obsessed with him when that movie came out. From the original trilogy I guess I\u2019d be R2D2 because he seems to be able to do a lot for this shit looking robot! I shouldn\u2019t really say that.<\/span><\/p>\n Are you a proper die-hard fan?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I guess you could say that yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n So, would you find it easy to rate the films?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes! Are you going to make me do that?<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah of course!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Oh god, ok. Ooh. The first three, the trilogy, they\u2019re all pretty much 9 or 10\/10. My favourite is probably The Empire Strikes Back, that\u2019s definitely my favourite. My least favourite is in the prequels, the first and second prequel. That\u2019s going to sound really confusing because I can\u2019t remember the name! The first prequel, even though it had a character that visually I really loved, I thought it could have been much better. The one that followed that was not so great – I think a lot of proper Star Wars<\/i> fans thought that as well so it\u2019s ok for me to say!<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s the commercial pieces and pieces to be auctioned off the Selfridges collaboration.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, the designers did two commercial pieces for the store which I think is in store today, it\u2019s a jumper and a t-shirt and there\u2019s two catwalk looks that will be auctioned, I guess next week.<\/span><\/p>\n How long did it take you to make the pieces?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The commercial pieces were quite straightforward because I didn\u2019t deal with any of the production, I just submitted the designs so that was quite fast. The catwalk looks obviously I made those so that took a bit longer!<\/span><\/p>\n Can you talk us through the creation of the catwalk pieces?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n When I met with Disney, they showed us, there was a catalogue of visuals and different graphics all based on the new film. It\u2019s all based on the new movie. Then we saw trailers and things like that and I was quite selfish and I picked out what I personally like the most from that information we were given. I think it was, not so obviously said, to avoid the original characters. I picked Captain Phasma who\u2019s this huge female character, she\u2019s a chrome stormtrooper so I used that visual. Her helmet basically. The second one was quite straightforward, it basically said Star Wars and the title for the new movie but I warped it to suggest a twist in the story that everybody knows. I used little trims of primary colour as a throwback to my childhood when I discovered Star Wars. It wasn\u2019t very in depth! It was quite literal. There\u2019s stars on the garments! It is quite literal but I tend to do that a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n Whoever\u2019s going to buy these auction pieces, do you want people to wear them or for them to be kept in a glass box and be iconic pieces?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n It would be interested to see somebody wearing it. It\u2019s not crazy, the shapes and proportions aren\u2019t crazy, so you could probably wear it.<\/span><\/p>\n Just probably not to Tesco?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. You\u2019d probably wear it for an occasion but it\u2019d be nice to see someone wear it! I always like to see people wearing my clothes, I guess that\u2019s the point of having a brand. I\u2019d like to see somebody wear it and then maybe put it in a glass box after.<\/span><\/p>\n How important was Star Wars<\/i> to you growing up, were you running around the house with a lightsaber?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah absolutely. I still have one. There\u2019s one kicking around. I think I was about nine or ten when the first prequel came out. That got me. I hadn\u2019t seen the original ones at that point and then I went to see this one and then I discovered that there was this whole other thing. I\u2019ve always been obsessed with space. I convinced myself at a young age that I would be an astronaut, which didn\u2019t happen obviously. I think because I already had that in my head, because I was obsessed with the moon, I believed that people lived on the moon, when you watch Star Wars<\/i> it\u2019s what you want space to be like! You can go to all these planets and there\u2019s different life forms and people. As a kid you don\u2019t want to imagine space as this vacuum of nothing. Star Wars<\/i> just opens your brain even more to believing all this stuff exists, especially as a kid. It definitely fuelled my imagination. The astronaut thing didn\u2019t happen!<\/span><\/p>\n You never know, one day! You might be able to go on holiday to the moon soon!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah I might change my mind. I would absolutely love that, I\u2019ve got so many pictures around my flat of the moon it\u2019s crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m a fraud, as a kid Star Wars<\/i> freaked me out.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I guess as a kid some of it can be quite scary but mostly it\u2019s, \u201cOh my god! I want that! I want to be in that.\u201d You could keep making collections based on Star Wars<\/i>, you\u2019d never run out of references, for me when I did my Spring\/Summer, I got stuck because there\u2019s so much stuff. There\u2019s so much Star Wars<\/i> product that already exists so I was like, \u201cHow do I do something that shows how much I like Star Wars<\/i> but doesn\u2019t look like something that\u2019s already out there?\u201d I was trying to figure out which characters to use, which people to avoid, there was so much stuff but amazing stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n