We recently caught up with Cathal McAteer, founder of Folk, and quizzed him about his influences. Here’s what he had to say about where it all comes from for Folk.

‘We try and do our own stuff, we don’t tend to buy a lot of old garments and replicate them - we take influence from them, just like most people. But all our influence comes from stuff we’ve done in the past and the things we like.

Also, the thing that could be the catalyst for a lot of ideas could be really small. For instance, a watercolour painting, [and it wasn't even the whole painting] just the shapes and the tones of that become almost the whole voice of the collection - it’s nice when it comes that easy. Usually, you’re trying to find it in various areas.

(At this point) we’ve made so many garments and a lot of those garments are still there. So we’re continually looking at those and improving them. Sometimes improving them, sometimes stripping them bare and starting again. We try and stay in our box in a way, because we know who we are and what we like, so we try and improve on that.

We like making garments better with different fabrics, playing with it a bit, merging garments that we’ve already made. Because we owe that to the people that buy from us. They’re expecting us to make the really nice striped jumper because we do that really well and they enjoy buying that, so we wanna give them an even better one for next season.’

Photography by Andy Barnham

A longstanding civil war in menswear has been between the fashion forward folks and the lovers of classics. For the most part, Scandinavian brands tend to veer towards the latter, but there are a few fighting for the other side. One such designer is Henrik Vibskov, a man who only entered Central St. Martins to impress a girl.

‘I met this really hot girl who was applying to Central Saint Martins. I wasn’t completely sure what the school was all about, but I’d heard of the place,’ he said in an interview with Fader magazine. ‘I put together a portfolio, bought a ticket, went to London for the first time, did the interview for the menswear course and got in’.

Prior to this whimsical application, Vibskov played in a band, saying that it’s the attitude from music that influences his collection moreso than any central theme or inspiration. ‘I think the idea of attitude coupled with style really feeds in to what I do now. Not that my stuff looks rock & roll or anything—but it is about creating an identity, and much of that comes from music.’

Aside from fashion and music, Vibskov also puts on art exhibitions, the most recent one being his ‘graphics works’ exhibition in Berlin. When he was asked about merging fashion and art in a recent Farfetch interview he said, ‘No, I don’t even think in those categories… I follow my ideas and then work out in which project they fit.’

With collection titles including ‘The Solar Donkey Experiment’, ‘The Human Laundry collection’ and ‘The Big Wet Shiny Boobies Collection’, you can be sure that his clothes are an acquired taste. But what surprises most about Vibskov’s collection is just how wearable they are. While they’ll never be as classic as a navy jumper, the clothes do have a far wider audience than most fashion forward clothing lines.

While the need to create something that people actually want to wear, as opposed to things that people will just appreciate from a distance may be a factor in all this, there’s also the fact he doesn’t see himself as part of fashion, ‘I really don’t think of myself as a fashion person and maybe that’s the problem. I just feel pretty normal.’

In my last post celebrating Bill Amberg I concentrated on craft – his use of bridle leather throughout the bags and the structure that gives them, as well as the most recent innovation of using oak bark-tanned leather that grows colour-rich and characterful almost as you watch it.

This post, rather than craft and bags, will discuss design and gloves.

It will not surprise readers that I consider my hands to be unsuited to ready-to-wear gloves, and have never found any that truly fit. Such are the excuses that a bespoke devotee of makes about his feet, shoulders and much else.

My hands are relatively broad with long fingers, but the wrist is small. Artistic hands, in the eyes of my mother; feminine hands in the taunts of everyone else.

The problem with slim wrists is that gloves are not tight enough there and so slide forward on the hand, making them feel loose all over. Even elasticated gloves aren’t tight enough. For someone that gets itchy when his collar is too big or his cuffs just a touch too short, this is an irritation.

By blind luck, I stumbled upon a solution at Bill Amberg. All his gloves are inspired by models, either modern or historical, being used out there in the world. The pair I liked are those worn by the cavalry officers that guard London’s royal palaces – you know, the ones that aren’t allowed to smile.

In unlined calf skin they are very soft and supple, yet thick enough to be warm. And they’re not just copies of the officers’ – they are produced by the same company but commissioned exclusively for Bill.

Gleefully for me, they also button snugly around the wrist. I discovered that the model is part of the reason (Bill’s driving glove, a copy of an old British model, is short and loose at the wrist, designed to be easy to put on and not constricting) but the leather is also important. The soft calf stretches more, so as long as the fingers are long enough, you can try one size smaller than normal. I downsized from an nine to an eight.

While I highly recommend Bill’s gloves – others are copies of those worn by air force pilots and fishermen – this is obviously not the season for gloves any more. There is one pair of the cavalry officer gloves on the site, if you happen to be a size 10. But they also have some left in the store in the Burlington Arcade. And if you’re lucky enough to find some you like, they’re on sale.

Otherwise, just have to wait until Autumn/Winter 2010.

While streetwear is a lifelong obsession for some, for many it acts as a springboard to a more refined clothing range. The latest brand which has risen from streetwear is French label Commune De Paris 1871.

Named after a French government that ruled briefly in 1871 (hailed as the first assumption of power by the working class) Commune De Paris started up in mid 2008. The team consists of three members in Sebastian Lyky, Edouard Launay and Alexandre Maïsetti. Maïsetti previously helmed streetwear brand Shaiwear, a brand which became infamous for a marketing campaign that attracted the ire of several high profile outlets.

While it can be risky for brands and fashion to use specific parts of history as a fashion inspiration, Maisetti feels comfortable doing so. Whilst admitting that he found the movement ‘aesthetically pleasing’, he also stated that ‘This period in French history is not only rich in symbolism and imagery, but also inspiring’. Going on to say that this was ‘a kind of homage’.

The clothes themselves are of the well made basics variety, with the clothes focusing on making a few things in the best way they know how as opposed to reinventing wheel. The cotton they use is Egyptian, whilst the rest of the fabrics (including cashmere and merino wool) come from Italy.

When it comes to the topic of prestige no longer being the sole factor to certain customers, Alexandre states, ‘People need to know that they pay a fair price. Prestige is a thing. But it can no longer remains the only stake.’