For Jordan Bradfield, luxury is about the meaning behind the clothes.
Founded as a response to the mass production and overconsumption of the fashion industry, Bradfield's eponymous label aims to focus on storytelling, craftsmanship and serves as a reminder that fashion can still be personal and intentional. In fact, each piece is made-to-measure a statement against overproduction, intended to have their own personal stories and memories for each wearer that can be passed down as heirlooms.
"I don’t care about being mass; I want to be meaningful," Bradfield tells PAPER. "I see my designs as journal entries — ways to process and question the culture we were brought up under, exist within and are subconsciously molded by."
The debut collection, called "Liminal Beings," is inspired by the final girls from classic slasher films as a symbol of resilient transformation, exploring the idea of empowerment as something self-defined and personal. Just as the final girl evolves, the collection conceptually considers how power can shift and change, which is also an allegory about the workplace. "Watching Sidney from Scream shoot Billy without flinching, the dark transformation she’d undergone in that short span of plot, triggered a parallel reflection on the way big business morphs people as they work their way up the ladder," Bradfield says.
Power takes shape in different silhouettes: tailoring meets easiness and more modest pieces have provocative cutaways and keyholes. Clean, hand-sewn finishing contrasts with raw edges and unpressed seams.The textures and colors include cashmeres, Italian wools and silks in shades of white, oxblood, burgundy, black and brown — a palette inspired by the paintings of Rothko and Caravaggio.
The campaign for "Liminal Beings" takes inspiration from Helmut Newton and Alfred Hitchcock and imagines a reality where the final girl is the predator and not they prey. It stars Emira D’Spain, the house muse, alongside Danielle Mareka, Lucy Sánchez, Kiana Cumming and Vienna Skye.
Growing up queer in a small rural town raised by a single mother and three older sisters, Bradfield learned early on that gendered roles and much of culture is a construct. "To me, if everything was a construct, then I could just as easily construct my own reality to exist within, and that’s what I did," he says. "That’s how I survived being a gay boy in the midwest during the '90s and 2000s."
That's why Bradfield wants to provide that same freedom to others through his clothing, giving people a chance to write their own narratives and create new versions of themselves, finding a feeling of empowered escapism in the process.
"That’s why my brand is entirely made-to-measure," he says. "I think the idea of power, what makes each of us feel powerful, is unique to the individual’s life story — the tapestry of experiences that mold their internal processing. So I wanted to be able to work with people to create unique visages of power that resonate only with them. Because, to me, true power lies in irreverent individuality. Supremacy is self-defined.”
Photography: Luke Abby
Styling: Ella Cepeda
Hair: Wesley O’Meara
Makeup: Mollie Gloss
Production: Chelsea Palatucci, Aires Miranda-Antoino, Joseph Para
Director: Jasper Rischen
Video production: Rischen Studios
DP: Tom Ford
Gaffer: Christopher Burke
1st AC: Thomas Awender
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