Gareth Pugh

Remember fashion as performance art? English designer Gareth Pugh does. True, for every Bianca Jagger on a white horse, there's now a Lady Gaga in feathered John Galliano neck brace, but Pugh rarely compromises his art for something as trivial as sales. A graduate of London's Central Saint Martins and founding member of art collective !WOWOW!, Pugh's background in costume design and involvement in London's club scene influenced his Alice-In-Wonderland-meets-S&M-goth-club-kid aesthetic. His 2005 debut collection was a critical success but commercial flop: none of the pieces were intended to be worn off the runway. Often distorting the human figure to the point of obscuring it entirely (an interesting concept for an industry in which the human figure is highly fetishized), Pugh has sent models out in dresses made of inflatable rubber, covered head-to-toe in latex, or dressed as Pugh's interpretation of a stealth bomber: they're walking pieces of art, living sculptures to be looked at but not touched. Alas, art for art's sake no longer pays the bills, even though Pugh cheekily presented his SS10 collection in NYC as a video installation. Recent collections show actual wearable designs, attracting mainstream clientele and increasing Pugh's profile outside fashion's insular world.