Charlie Porter on What Architects Wear
As a former fashion critic and superfan of art, it made perfect sense that for Charlie Porter’s debut book, What Artists Wear, he put the clothes of some of the world’s most loved artists – from Barbara Hepworth to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keefe – and exciting contemporary names – such as Charlotte Prodger, Prem Sahib and Martine Syms – under the microscope. Intrigued, we asked Charlie to do the same to one of our favourite types of creatives: architects.
Here, we sit down with Charlie to discuss the difference between what artists and architects wear, what the clothes of Luis Barragán and Horace Gifford say about their queerness and the influence of the patriarchy on 20th century female architects and their way of dress.
One of the reasons you chose artists as the subject of your book is because they don’t have to wear uniforms to work. What about architects?
An architect is someone who builds houses for other people, so in their day-to-day lives, architects speak with clients, and often that conversation is difficult or about thorny problems. The fact that their work involves interaction means they have some sense of uniform, yes. They must think about what they’re wearing. They must present a sense of calm, confidence and humility but also of authority, intellect and curiosity.
What do you think is the difference between what artists and architects wear?
I think architects look for sobriety in clothing, a blank canvas. They often wear black or very simple clothes so that everything else – such as their work – can be the complex thing.
Functionality is something they share with artists, but in a different way. Functionality for artists today can mean a tracksuit, track pants, a t-shirt. For an architect it can mean a chore jacket with big pockets. It must involve a sense of presentation, whereas for artists, functionality can be dirty.
In your book you have chapters dedicated to themes – denim, workwear, paint on clothing, for example. What themes would you have for architects?
I would do a chapter on the patriarchy and 20th century female architects. We can admire the clothing of Eileen Gray and Charlotte Perriand, but what does it actually mean when they’re navigating a patriarchal set up where they don’t have equal rights? Neither had the right to vote in France until 1944. There are layers to it.
I would have a section on smartness; black; glasses; chore jackets – chore jackets and unstructured jackets is very much the David Adjaye look. I think David’s easiness with a relaxed style comes from the casual locations he first made his name, like Dirty House in Shoreditch, and the early phenomenal success he had cemented his look. David Adjaye has softened the language of authority in architect’s clothes, compared to someone like Luis Barragán.
How would you describe the relationship Barragán had with clothes?
He was super smart and tall, so the length of his line was elegant. There was this whole other world to Barragán, which was his Catholicism and his queerness – he was closeted. Rather than through his clothes, I think Casa Luis Barragán was the total expression of everything he was. At the end of his bed was a handmade shrine to the model Iman – it’s the campest thing that ever existed.
Then there’s Horace Gifford, who built these unbelievable homes on Fire Island in the 1960s specifically for queer men. However, as the years went by, he suffered increasingly from depression, ostracizing himself and eventually dying in the AIDS crisis. Horace wore as little as possible on Fire Island, or a hoodie – not like a traditional architect at all, the opposite of Barragán. Horace was openly queer, making homes for queer humans, and he didn’t use his clothes to pretend he was something he wasn’t.
Did you notice any similarities between the way particular artists and architects dress? For example, Eileen Gray and Georgia O’Keefe both wore men’s tailored suits – right up until they were in their nineties.
The commonality between those two is that they were females in the same era. Anne Truit’s daughter, Alexander, who I speak to in the book, said her mother couldn’t wear women’s clothes to work because at the time – in the 1960s – they wouldn’t allow movement. Men’s tailoring, at its heart, is ergonomic. If it’s done properly, it allows the body to move.
You wrote, “Any artist who wears a suit, whatever their gender, must contend with the meaning of male power, it’s up to them how they challenge it.” Eileen Gray certainly challenged male power. It’s likely Le Corbusier wasn’t a fan of her wearing men’s tailoring.
Gray was completely unknown and ignored at the end of her life, so, you have to say that in his lifetime Le Corbusier won – the male power won. Eileen Gray was also queer and was ridiculed by Le Corbusier in the mural he painted on her E-1027 house, where points out her relationship with women.
That era of modernism was a time for women in France where they couldn’t vote. I don’t think that’s ever really talked about. One of the first things you see at the Design Museum’s Charlotte Perriand exhibition is her necklace. It’s been said that she was using it to present herself as a quintessential modern woman, but to me, it looks more like a chain around her neck. Perhaps there’s a more powerful message behind it.
There was a particularly interesting point made in your book by the stylist Karen Binns, who said Basquiat dressed like his paintings. In the following chapter on workwear, you noted that Agnes Martin’s quilted clothes resembled the grids in her work. Do you think the same can be said for any architects?
Well, certainly IM Pei. There are the very circular glasses he wears – geometric shapes are there in his work, in the pyramid buildings at the Louvre Museum. His look and work had a very elemental similarity and playfulness. The pyramid is super serious but it’s also funny and audacious – it still makes me smile whenever I get to see it.
To finish, if What Architects Wear was the sequel to your book, what would you put on the cover in place of Georgia O’Keefe’s suit?
IM Pei’s glasses.
