When I catch up with Luke Edward Hall on a damp October afternoon, he’s busy being chauffeured around the Gloucestershire countryside, running errands with his eight-month-old Whippet, Merlin, perched on his lap.
It quickly becomes apparent that the artist has got rather a lot on: from designing the highly anticipated new Hotel Les Deux Gares in Paris, launching more ceramics with Richard Ginori and his usual one-off commissions to adding the finishing touches to the cottage he shares with his designer partner, Duncan Campbell. Do their styles ever clash, I ask? ‘He gets all my references, which sometimes can be quite obscure, and I get his. We do have differences, my [style] is more Seventies, Rococo, his is a bit more streamlined 1930s Italian. It’s really fun because there’s lots of push and pull.’
Alongside all of this, the project commanding much of Hall’s time is his new collaboration with American heritage brand Gant: the latest in a stream of high profile partnerships that celebrate the whimsical, Call Me By Your Name-type escapism that has captured the imagination of the art world and every soul with an Instagram account.
Burberry, Lanvin, Habitat, The Rug Company and the Royal Academy have grappled to grasp hold of the vibrant, dreamlike mystique that we shop-a-holics can’t get enough of. Each project has proved hugely exciting, says Hall, but this latest foray with Gant is especially so. ‘I’ve brought a lot of vintage Gant clothes before, they’ve got a really great history going back to the Forties when they were part of that whole preppy thing.’
Before the coronavirus outbreak, Hall was whisked off to Sweden where he ‘spent a day in their archive looking through all of their amazing stuff’, then ‘reimagining’ key pieces and ‘creating completely new garments inspired by their heritage, using my colour-palette and little playful details’. The result, he hopes, is a timeless collection that we’ll buy and treasure like he treasures his vintage Gant shirts. ‘I think across the board, not just in fashion, we’re going to have to think more about buying in a conscious way and I think that’s really good,’ he says.
Hall’s own path to success wasn’t as straightforward as being ‘discovered’. Originally from Basingstoke, he says he always knew he ‘wanted to do something creative, but wasn’t too sure what path to take’. Eager to find out, he moved to London aged 18 to study the art foundation course at Central Saint Martins, where he then stuck around, briefly enrolling in a fashion communications BA, then enlisting in the school’s prestigious menswear course. During his time studying there, he sashayed between odd jobs with stylists and interning at JW Anderson, where he met Campbell. ‘He hates this story! But we met because Duncan had been street cast to be a model. We met at the after party, kind of talked on Facebook for about six months and then got together. It’s been almost 12 years now.’
Hall says he was always excited to do his own ‘thing’, squirrelling away creative works whenever he had the chance. ‘It’s second nature to me, I had always been drawing and painting and making things since I was very small,’ he says. Eventually, in 2015, his unmistakable style — inspired by storytelling, legends and the inter-war period when Cecil Beaton and the Bloomsbury Group ruled the roost — had gained enough traction for him to justify his dream of producing works full time. ‘Right away I was doing a mix of projects. My first major commission was about 50 to 60 drawings for a hotel in Palm Springs called the Parker, designed by Jonathan Adler.’
Those commissions haven’t stopped. Covid-19 certainly hasn’t hurt the volume of requests Hall receives, though it has nudged him to give up his London studio in favour of settling in the British countryside. Like many Londoners who have chosen to flee the capital, he and Campbell are enjoying having more breathing space. ‘I do miss London and I imagine when things go back to normal we’ll be in London more. But for now it’s really nice to work here,’ he says. Here’s hoping that he can be tempted back full time one day soon.
