Q&A: Charlie Casely-Hayford
The co-founder of Casely-Hayford on slow fashion, London style tribes and continuing his father’s legacy in the family business
Interview: Lauren Bravo
Portrait: Rory van Millingen
Just what is it about the power of a sharp suit? Do you think that good tailoring can affect us psychologically?
Very much so. A lot of people liken a well-cut suit to body armour. I think the confidence comes from something fitting you so well, and the fact that you’re part of the design process; it’s a collaboration between tailoring house and client. This gives the clothing a greater currency than the average garment in your wardrobe. Throwaway culture is so abundant now, clothing has been devalued within people’s lives and garments aren’t things that we hold onto for years and years, or pass down. But tailoring is different. There’s an amazing energy around each suit when you pull it out of your wardrobe in the morning.
Do you wear a suit every day?
I do most days, but I wear it very relaxed. I wear it like I would wear a tracksuit, with a t-shirt and trainers. There are all these old-world ideas of what a suit has to be, and they’re not applicable to a lot of people. What we have always tried to do is cater to the individual, rather than enforcing a specific code on everyone who walks through the door.
Lots of us are now ‘business on top, sweatpants on the bottom’. Do we need a revival of old-fashioned glamour, or are traditional dress codes dead?
I’m into the high/low mix, but I also think there are moments when dressing up makes you feel good about yourself and that shouldn’t be forgotten. If you get too comfortable in your loungewear, it can have an impact on your state of mind—particularly as so many of us are now stuck at home most working days. It’s a positive thing, mentally, to make a bit more effort and create that separation between home and work... even if it’s just for a Zoom call.
You’ve dressed an incredible rollcall of stars for the red carpet. Who have been your career-defining clients?
It’s not necessarily about people being famous. On a personal level, I get just as much joy—if not more—from cutting someone a suit for their wedding day. It means that we’re a small part of the happiest and most important day of someone’s life, and that really resonates with me. We also have a strong connection with the music industry and a lot of British musicians. It’s an integral part of the brand. What’s nice is that we’ve often dressed artists at quite pivotal moments, such as James Blake winning his first Grammy, The xx winning the Mercury Prize, or Sam Smith getting his first Brit Award. All of those figures were taking that next big step in their career, and it’s a real privilege to have been a part of that.
Casely-Hayford is a family affair, and you come from a pretty incredible family. What was it like growing up in such a creative household?
My dad [pioneering designer Joe Casely-Hayford OBE] met my mum, Maria Stevens, at Central Saint Martins when they were 19, and they worked together running his label until he passed away just under two years ago. My sister and I spent a lot of time in their studios as kids, surrounded by clothes, going to runway shows—it was a pretty insane childhood in retrospect, but to us it was just normality. One time, Princess Diana turned up to my dad’s London Fashion Week show, and my sister and I got bumped from the front row to the second. That was quite an eye-opener.
You were only 22 when you and he created the Casely-Hayford label together. How did your styles influence each other?
There’s always the assumption that I brought the youthful element to the table, but actually it was the other way round! I was more classic and my dad was always the one pushing the boundaries. That was just who he was. He was incredibly engaged with culture, always willing to learn and unlearn. A lot of the design process was about the conversation between father and son, experiencing the same thing from different perspectives. The brand is about duality; it’s a concept that has resonated with my family for generations. My great-grandfather [eminent lawyer and journalist JE Casely Hayford] would wear traditional kente cloth when he studied at Cambridge, then he would go back to Ghana and wear Savile Row suits. That idea of double consciousness runs through our brand, and also through our family history.
Do you still hear your dad’s voice when you’re designing?
Oh yes. My mum and my dad were like a single entity; it’s rare that you meet a couple who have worked together every single day since they met. So I hear a lot of my dad through my mum, which is wonderful, and of course I hear her own voice as well. I feel more like a torchbearer, carrying on this family legacy to the next generation. It’s certainly not a lonely journey.
It’s been said that your clothes “sell London to the world”. What makes them a sartorial reflection of the city?
The socio-economic hierarchies in Britain have always created retaliation, rallied up incredible movements and spawned unique subcultures. Whether that’s mods, teds, skins, new romantics, nu rave, Britpop… there are just so many, and they’ve all been a reaction to the establishment. But I do feel that has changed over the past 10 years. Access to infinite information stifles that kind of creativity. A tribe is physical, it’s parochial—but the internet negates that. Now you can have someone in Kyoto dressed exactly the same as someone in Bognor Regis.
The Casely-Hayford label started out in Dover Street Market and then moved to Chiltern Street two years ago. What made you choose Marylebone?
We like the community, and the neighbourhood feeling that is quite unique to Marylebone. You don’t get that same sense of togetherness in Mayfair. There’s a real sophisticated intelligence in the people who live and work in the area, and the Marylebone man and woman are very much aligned with the Casely-Hayford man and woman. It just felt very natural. I still can’t think of anywhere else we would have wanted to open our first store.
Your wife, interior designer Sophie Ashby, designed the store. Does it feel like an extension of your home?
Yes, we pretty much designed it around that idea. Often when I go into luxury stores or tailoring houses, they’re quite austere and intimidating. We just wanted to create the warmest environment that we could, and we came to the conclusion that emulating our apartment was the natural way to make someone feel relaxed, so my wife set about creating this wonderful little world. The store is very small, but the intimacy is part of its charm. And everything is for sale—the furniture, the artwork, not just the clothing.
So we’re allowed to pop in just for a browse?
Absolutely! We once had a client—who wasn’t even a client yet—come in, sit downstairs in the fitting room and read a book for half an hour. Then he left without buying anything. It was a wonderful moment.
Sustainability is one of the most crucial topics of conversation happening in fashion just now. How do we best counter the speed and excesses of the industry?
It’s such a complicated subject, because there’s no blanket answer. There’s a lot of waste in terms of excess stock, both on the high street and at a luxury level. You’re second-guessing your customer and committing to these huge orders, and then there are piles and piles of clothes at the end of each season and everything is on sale all the time. It’s a model that doesn’t work on a number of levels, not least for the environment, and it’s the antithesis of what we do. A lot of our pieces are made to order, we don’t make much of each style, we respond to the client base, we work with small artisans, and when we need more, we make more. We use a lot of deadstock fabrics too. It’s impossible to scale that kind of thinking up to the size of the big guys, and that’s where the problem lies. But we’re not trying to take over the world. I’m happy where I am.
Racism is another long-overdue conversation in fashion (and pretty much everywhere else). How do we create a genuinely inclusive fashion industry?
I’m conscious that the easy win for a lot of brands is just to put a model of colour in your campaign and tick the box. But it’s about so much more than that. A lot of the problems stem from behind the curtain. It’s about a lack of diversity in the boardrooms, and that’s where it needs to be addressed first and foremost; then it can trickle down through the hierarchy. But whether people are doing it for the right or wrong reasons, we can’t deny that there is change happening. It’s at a glacial pace, but we are going in the right direction.
What’s next on the Casely-Hayford to-do list?
We’re trying to build the idea of modern personal tailoring. The word ‘tailoring’ is often associated with formal suiting—but just because you’ve decided to save up and invest in a bespoke garment, why does that mean it needs to be a suit? Why can’t it be a bomber jacket, or a jumpsuit, or a trench coat? Something casual. We’re opening up that market in quite a unique way, with a more relaxed offering alongside our suits. And we’re getting amazing reactions from clients. To be able to have a range of pieces created in collaboration with you is an exciting way of building your wardrobe—and more sustainable too. You value your clothing more if you’ve been a part of its creation.