Jamie Sutherland and the magpie’s paradise

Mixing 16kg worth of scavenged Nitrous Oxide canisters and luxury essential ‘toilet paper’ together in a grad collection

You could say that Jamie Sutherland had been preparing for lockdown a year before it started. Receiving a crash course on self-isolation last year after going back to his hometown of Norwich following an unsuccessful project for Balenciaga in his second year, led the designer to re-evaluate his process from the ground up. “I turned off all my social media and contemplated, ‘Where is this coming from?’ Then I started documenting things around the house and that’s how I generated this whole project. It ended up being probably my best project in second year, which is funny, because then in lockdown, it was the same world I was surrounded by so it’s kind of happened again, but not by choice this time!” His two-look collection that he created from home focused on revisiting his childhood memories, such as his mother collecting miscellaneous objects on the streets on his way to school. “She’s done it her whole life and she’s still doing it now. A bit like beachcombing but in the street. I used to do it too. At home, we’ve got boxes of earrings, bracelets, and any kind of metal, interesting bits of wire. My mom used to call me a magpie because I was good at picking up shiny things from the street.”

Check Jamie Sutherland’s portfolio on Pinterest

Jamie Sutherland and the magpie’s paradise — Jamie Sutherland, Lookbook

He knew that fashion was a calling since the age of 11 when in year three, a teacher from his art class saw his designs for a project on Ancient Egypt. Jamie has spent the last five years at CSM between his internships at McQueen, Anrealage in Tokyo, and Samuel Gui Yang. He has spent his last year delving into his drawings and things around his home as resources were cut off because of COVID-19. “One of my favourite things to do was – which is really sad that you can’t do it right now – just go into the library at CSM and closing my eyes and picking out a book and then doing that 100 times over until I got something that I liked, or finding a book that someone’s left by the printers that they’ve already used.” His expressive second piece turned towards deeper, more raw areas of his memories. The splayed branch digging out from his chest in his collection photos, which were taken in his kitchen, makes for a dramatic version of a broken heart. The skirt, jacket, and trousers for the look were all made out of toilet paper, a resource that became a sudden luxury during COVID-19 as the shops could not keep up with consumer stockpiling. The other, shimmering with over 350 Nitrous Oxide canisters, was an echo of his mother’s habits while he was living in London. “Me and my friend Hannah went on a night out to Shoreditch at two in the morning and the streets were covered in them. We just put on big coats, had two tote bags and we were just filling them with canisters. Although I collected some before, the final dress is made almost completely from that one night in Shoreditch.” The dress weighs more than 16 kg and reminds him of the emotional weight of his collection as it digs into the shoulders.

As both his parents are artists, he is particularly connected to drawing and has even covered his table with paper so he can draw his ideas at any time. “That’s often the very first thing that I do. I’ve never really been into fashion drawings. So often, they might not even be people – it’s like decoding something. It takes quite a long time and it’s only at the very end of the process that I’m like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.” His time in Japan and at McQueen has given him more control over his silhouette, while developing his gothic Lolita aesthetic from the White Show at CSM all the way through to his final collection.

“When you sit down for enrollment, turn to the person to your left, and say ‘Hi, my name is Jamie.”

Lockdown and being away from London has given him an opportunity to look back on his time at CSM. “I think it was the best five years of my life and so different from what I expected it to be and that’s why it was great because everyone genuinely does care about you. I could have learned how to be a surgeon in the time it took, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. At the time when lockdown began I was devastated, because the last four or five months that we’ve been working five years for felt cancelled. But actually, looking back now I feel so bad for first-year students who are going to meet people on Zoom. My mom gave me some advice when I was moving to London – she told me when you sit down for enrollment, turn to the person to your left, and say ‘Hi, my name is Jamie’. It’s funny because I did that, and that person ended up being one of my closest friends and we’re still friends now. It’s still something you can do through Zoom.”

“You don’t realize as a graduate or as a student how imperative you are to the industry. The sooner we realize our importance – without sounding big headed – the quicker things can change.”

His focus on mental health and deepening connections is also something he wants to apply going forward in the industry, after seeing the ins and outs while he was interning. “The industry is not sustainable on so many levels. Before, I was just thinking about sustainability in terms of the labour and recycling and materials, but it goes much deeper than that. You can greenwash things and have elements which become sustainable and that’s great, but things need to be uprooted. It’s tricky, because if you want to go out and start a young brand and make everything sustainable, it is going to be harder and more expensive. You don’t realize as a graduate or as a student how imperative you are to the industry. The sooner we realize our importance – without sounding big headed – the quicker things can change.”