A-Cold-Wall FW22: new creative design process and ghoulish silhouettes

Samuel Ross, founder and creative director of the clothing brand A-Cold-Wall, was one of the last to present his Autumn/Winter 2022 collection for this one, during Milan Men’s Fashion Week (MFW), although unlike the rest, he decided to present it digitally and so that fashion critics would not analyse it too much, as Ross commented in a zoom call.

Drawing inspiration from classical civilisation to the Renaissance and contemporary conservative government in the UK and changing his usual design process from sketching to CAD in favour of moulding clay and plaster into mock-ups, Samuel has not succeeded in his goal of keeping critics from scrutinising his latest collection for A.C.W. as the looks he has proposed have won us over as soon as we have seen them. But what is it that has led Samuel Ross to change his design process? We have the answer, and it all came about last December during his exhibition of sculptural marble furniture at the Art Basel fair in Miami. From that moment on, the designer changed part of his creative process, incorporating metaphorical illustrations of the consequences of social physics into his clothes.

Referring to the latter argument, we find no better example than the bow-legged trousers, which reflect the elasticity of lead, the marble finish of the tactically pragmatic outerwear and the dyed canvas twill pieces to which a linear pattern created by compressing photographs of London, New York, Milan and Tokyo was applied. In addition, we have to highlight how Ross has made reference to the current pandemic situation we are still going through, designing head coverings that, according to him, help to protect you and to escape. And we can’t finish this review without highlighting the bronze-coloured maxi bags that the designer has created.