Charlie McCosker

‘I invite you to RTRN’ - Charlie McCosker

Driven by rhythm, Charlie McCosker’s practice oscillates between odds, gathering energy and momentum as it does so. Whether subverting fast-fashion culture via slow tailoring and craft, sharing a global stage with local makers or understanding the individual in the same vein as one’s crowd, garments seem to reflect the attitude of their maker: adaptable, strong and determined. Whilst shark-tooth talismans and heritage tartans speak to McCosker’s South African and Catholic Irish heritage, the manipulated silhouettes, layers and appendages that characterise each collection, seem to comprehend the complex uncertainty of our future with nuanced intelligence and fight.

McCosker graduated from Central Saint Martins this year (2021), ending at the beginning, with her final collection RTRN. Believing that the most forward-thinking thing we can do to save the planet is to RTRN, the collection thoughtfully re-roots itself in slow processes to design for an uncertain future. Beginning with herself, by returning to her parental homelands of Ireland and South Africa, in an upfront self-assessment McCosker seeks to uncover the unstable structures upon which we confusedly hang our values in the modern world. Investigating her convoluted histories within both Ireland and South Africa, in which one was a coloniser and one was colonised, RTRN imposes that we must comprehend and fully understand our past actions if we are to move forward. 

Such reflection comes with a considered, slow approach to her maturing voice as an individual and designer in the world. Unlike her first collection, Birds Don’t Float (2018), that innocently flirted with womanliness - a strap falling off the shoulder for instance - RTRN is more striking in its exploration of the power and ownership to be had in what a woman chooses say with her clothes, no matter how typically feminine or masculine those garments might be. Signature pieces within RTRN pick up on this concept of adaptability, usability and choice through conscious styling differences, like the collared jacket that can be worn like a puffer, buttoned fully up, or down like a suit blazer. 

Like ever, the collection showcases McCosker’s innovative and skilful hand in transforming and elevating waste objects through circular design. Often creating new garments using secondhand clothing, a unique yet necessary skill garnered by those who like McCosker have grown up in the countryside, designs evolve when forced to adapt to the limitations of each waste fabric. Significant experiences have further transformed McCosker’s attitudes towards waste, such as working alongside designers in Kampala, Uganda, a city whose streets are swamped with the detritus of the western world’s fast-fashion addiction, to the point where it is saturating the tailoring market. Learning from her collaborators, such as the bead artist Tinashe Mutizwa based in South Africa, who are highly skilled in elevating waste, McCosker is continually seeking to apply regeneration to every facet of her garments, sources and relationships. Moving beyond traditional frameworks, McCosker’s practice is at the beginning of its journey in recognising the multifaceted layers and systems that must operate in order to create truly sustainable design. 

An unnerving snapshot into our possible future under the pretence that we seem to have given up on this planet, Sun Damage (2020), a collection created by McCosker during the pandemic, speculates how we are going to have to dress in the future, given the current environmental crisis. In order to protect ourselves from weather’s harsh conditions in the future whilst also facilitating our human desire to express ourselves, Sun Damage explores personal style through the concept of making hats into hairstyles. The Sun Damage collection is brought together via a need to provide protection: whether environmental protection from the increasing intensity of the sun; or a spiritual protection offered by the cowrie shells and shark’s teeth that adorn the garments. McCosker’s practice is unique in its exploration of identity and environmentalism, which are viewed by the designer not as separate quantifiable entities, but rather indivisible as part of the same systematic whole. Within Sun Damage, the peaks, capes, layers, straps and scarves that envelop the wearer become a second skin. McCosker’s personal styling of each look is always considered, purposefully mixing and clashing patterns through layering. Building on top of the body, through each appendage, individuals are invited to re-style and re-structure who they wish to present to the world.

Tartan also features, a fabric evocative of heritage that has become synonymous with McCosker’s collections over the years. An Irish fabric, of which McCosker has her own family tartan, the iconic textile works as a guide, a connective thread between each new collection as McCosker attempts to traverse the uneven terrain of our identities: past, present and future. Alongside Tartan, McCosker is keen on the quality that can be found in heritage Irish fabrics like tweed or South African fabrics such as kitenge and shweshwe - as they provide a really strong historical base that has stood the test of time and likewise perpetuate the slowness that is essential to McCosker’s work. By looking back upon our heritage, and consequently inwards upon herself, McCosker establishes a sensitive yet steady footing from which she is sure to launch.