Sydney based designer and AFC Member Jordan Gogos debuted his namesake brand at AAFW 2021. The highly anticipated event saw ‘wearable art’ and structural pieces featuring bold colours, eclectic prints and a diverse range of models walk the runway amongst painted objects designed in collaboration with 25 different artists, creatives and brands. We spoke to Jordan about his experience at AAFW and what’s next for the brand.
Can you tell us about your background and how Iordanes Spyridon Gogos came to be?
I started ISG as an experimental brand when I got back from NYC. I had been working solely on my furniture brand, GOGOS for three years - mainly within fashion contexts. The objects were constantly on set, in still life shots, in concept stores. The pieces were almost like their own fashion label. With COVID lockdowns and no access to machinery or storage, I was hyper aware of the buzz that circulates the fashion industry, so I thought if I make a logo and a website with these articles of mainly painted clothing I was making at the time, what will the response be? My first iteration of the brand name was Jordan Gogos, but I felt removing my Anglo-Saxon name out of it, and presenting my Greek name would show the shift in the practice from individual to brand.
What does ‘Australian’ Fashion & Design mean to you?
Centring indigenous/ First Nation fashion first and foremost. Second to that, Australian fashion is interchangeable and has moved into a space that has little firm fixtures! “Resort” collections came about as a solution to clarifying what collections season is if it’s not SS/AW… we’re seeing classified design fade away, and an absolute freedom in having opposite seasons to the rest of the world. We’re catering towards a global audience as we can release a bikini and knit in one show, so there’s really something for everyone across the world. There’s no one who understands, more than Australian’s the frustration of wanting to buy shorts in summer and only winter collections are available at your go-to brand. This is definitely translating on the runway, in installations, on the street, on social media - we’re making it up as we go along and it’s a hell of a lot more fun!
Can you tell us about the experience of presenting at AAFW 2021? What was the biggest obstacle you faced and how did you overcome it?
The brand really became, ‘a brand’, at Afterpay AustralianFashion Week. It was the most exciting thing to build a show gradually without mood-boards, without anything to show collaborators and the team. The biggest obstacle was definitely pitching the brand to partners, stakeholders and collaborators to be involved without any precedent. A brand that is so hands-on, and dare I say “arty” always does have a bit of a risk factor attached to it - how far will they go, is it just frayed edges and raw seams? Pushing the boundaries to show what we’re able to achieve was the most rewarding thing.
What’s next for Iordanes Spyridon Gogos? Any exciting projects in the pipeline?
More than ever! Our Melbourne Fashion Week install launched last week. I'm a part of Melbourne Art Fair as a brand ambassador and will be doing a bar with Glenfiddich whisky… I think that’s all I can say!? We’re venturing into all sorts of things fashion, non-fashion… the brand has become a vessel to access new and exciting things for everyone involved in ISG, so it’s all new to us and we’re grabbing the bull by the horns and running with it!
Images by Jamie Heath
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