Calum Gordon

writer, editor.

Calum Gordon is a Berlin-based writer. He is the co-author of Contemporary Menswear (Thames & Hudson), and has contributed to publications such as Dazed, SSENSE, Garage, 032c, i-D, Another Man, Kaleidoscope, Mundial Magazine, and LAW.

Calum also writes copy for brands and agencies, including adidas Originals, Converse, Carhartt WIP, The North Face, Doubleday and Cartwright, and R/GA.

He is currently the editor of WIP magazine, a biannual publication by Carhartt Work In Progress.

Contact: [email protected]

Portfolio
Kaleidoscope
12/10/2020
Notes on Camo

Taken from issue 37 of Kaleidoscope magazine

i-D
GmbH

Feature on Berlin-based brand GmbH for i-D 'Faith in Chaos' issue

www.carhartt-wip.com
Fiorucci Made Us Hardcore

Taken fromWIP magazine issue 04, SYNTHETIC MEMORY is an extensive dossier, marking the 30th anniversary of the "Second Summer of Love," when Acid House exploded across the UK, while also examining the power of cultural nostalgia. It hits at exactly seven minutes and 58 seconds of Mark Leckey's 1999 video artwork, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore.

The Face
12/16/2019
On Stage. Front Page. Every Show I Go.

Despite its European origins, the adidas Superstar feels as quintessentially American as French fries. There are four people closely associated with the shoe: the three members of Queens rap group Run-DMC and basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, whose career in the NBA spanned two decades, starting in 1969.

I-d
07/05/2019
an ode to stone island, the brand that britain misunderstood

About a month or so ago, while scrolling through my Instagram stories, I came across the account @stonedislandpatch. The concept is pretty simple: pictures of notable figures with poorly Photoshopped Stone Island badges on their left sleeves, typically with a caption that reads like it's been lifted from one of the many trashy, football casual novels published in the mid-aughts.

ssense
11/13/2019
A Brief History of Style in Sport

SSENSE and Victory Journal team up on five stories related to style in sport. Sometimes, it is the most incidental cultural moments that have the most influence. The kind of unexpected plays that you mentally posterize, that sneak into your mind in places and ways you can't anticipate, years later.

ssense
09/17/2019
Say Yes to the Vest

The final look of Louis Vuitton's SS20 menswear presentation offered what could generously be described as a "vest." It looked almost as if the model had been dipped in some high-strength adhesive and swung by his ankles around a Louis Vuitton showroom, accumulating tobacco-hewn, monogrammed bags and furniture as he went.

Garage
03/14/2019
Jim Lambie: 20 Years of Zobop

It started with an empty space, a nondescript floor and a bag of colored vinyl tape. Zobop, the artwork by Scottish artist Jim Lambie, was conceived for his first solo show in 1999, has since gone on to grace the floors of MoMA, the Royal Academy of Arts in London and, currently, the UK's Tate Liverpool gallery.

032c
SECOND ACID WINTER: The Roots of Fashion's Rave Revival - 032c

References to late nights and chemically-induced collectivism are woven throughout recent fashion history with London's Sports Banger, Gucci, and adidas's Spezial unveiling acid-tinged collections and campaigns. It's not unusual for brands to mine the counterculture seeking inspiration, but the parallels between early 90s rave and the present are not purely aesthetic, but political too.

10 Men Magazine
02/05/2019
Hype Nation

Ten minutes to read about streetwear losing its cool.

WIP Magazine
11/05/2018
Soul Skate

Sliding into Detroit, Michigan in search of America’s other skating subculture

Dazed
08/31/2018
The story of how secretive streetwear brand Cav Empt was born

In March 2011, a 9.0-9.1 magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific coast of Tōhoku. It was the most powerful earthquake to ever hit Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake which has been recorded, and in turn triggered a tsunami that hit Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, killing over 15,000 people, with a further 2,537 missing.

10 Magazine
11/12/2019
- 10 Magazine - Couture, High-end, Boutique Fashion News

Dressed in a plain black shirt, sleeves rolled up, with black-rimmed sunglasses, Shawn Stussy cut an inconspicuous figure at Kim Jones's recent debut menswear show for Dior. Not that it would have mattered much what he wore, at a show where most photographers would have had their cameras trained on attendees such as A$AP Rocky, Kate Moss and Skepta.

AnotherMan
07/30/2018
Why Adam Kimmel Was My Favourite Brand

I didn't learn of Adam Kimmel by seeing one of his oddball fashion presentations. Nor did I fall in love with his clothes by touching and trying them on in a perfectly merchandised boutique. (Well, not really.)

Garage
02/22/2018
How Soccer Became Fashion's Latest Obsession

Photograph by AFP for Getty Images. Fashion and football-sorry, soccer-have always made uncomfortable bedfellows. It is a sport in which the star players are cocooned from an early age: no parties, no normal teenage upbringing, none of the elements typically crucial in developing one's own sense of style.

Mundial Magazine
05/10/2018
The Greatest Shirt

Black camo and a whiff of violence. Lovely stuff.

ssense
11/09/2017
Why Collaboration Dominates Fashion in 2017

In 1999, then-nascent New York label Supreme wanted to make some sneakers. They didn't have the resources to make their own, so they approached someone who did: skate brand DC Shoes. The result was sold in Supreme's Lafayette Street store to little fanfare-no snaking queues round the block, no incessant online coverage.

Garage
04/20/2018
The Duo Making Political Clothes for Critical Streetwear Kids

You don't expect to find a gallery or museum's most radical works in the giftshop. But what if you could? What if, by changing the medium, you could spread the art, or ideas of an artist, further than a typical gallery space ever could?

Dazed
06/21/2016
Tyler, The Creator doesn't need the fashion industry

"The devil doesn't wear Prada, I'm clearly in a fucking white tee," rapped Tyler, The Creator on the opening track of his sophomore album Goblin. The line was the denouement to a six-minute diatribe where the 19-year-old delivered a slew of shockingly candid insights into his life, from his father walking out when he was a child, to thoughts of committing suicide.

Highsnobiety
05/14/2018
Streetwear Was Big Business in 2017, But is That a Good Thing?

As this year winds down we've recapped its highlights to bring you the best of 2017 in fashion, sneakers, music, movies and more. I know it's uncool to talk about what's "cool." But I'd like to. For streetwear, where the concept of cool is imperative to success, the past year has posed somewhat of an existential paradox.

Dazed
09/13/2017
The crew that raided NYC stores for Polo Ralph Lauren

In 1987, New York City was home to two gangs, both utterly obsessed with the fashion label Ralph Lauren - and neither was made up of WASPY, country club types. There was Ralphie's Kids from St John's and Utica in Crown Heights, and the amusingly titled United Shoplifters Association hailing from Marcus Garvey Village in Brownsville.

Ssense
The Influence of Streetwear on British Politics

Long after the polls have closed and the celebratory ticker tape has been swept away, the iconography endures. Shepard Fairey's 2008 'Hope' poster, created in support of Barack Obama, has a continued relevance today, and it's hard to think of last year's U.S. Presidential Election without thinking of Trump's red 'MAGA' cap.

AnotherMan
08/24/2017
How Stüssy Foresaw the Future of Fashion

When looking at pictures of Stüssy t-shirts and campaigns, it's often hard to distinguish what's from the past and what's current. The handwriting is the same, literally. In Shawn Stüssy's inimitable scrawl, the brand has a rich visual language, one that feels slightly nostalgic - created long before the days of Photoshop, but still relevant.

Dazed
02/08/2017
How Raf's first Calvin Klein campaign tears up the rulebook

Yesterday, the first Calvin Klein campaign of Raf Simons' tenure as the brand's chief creative officer was unveiled. Shot and styled by his long-time collaborators Willy Vanderperre and Olivier Rizzo, respectively, the series of images act as a statement of intent for the New York brand under the Belgian designer.

Dazed
05/17/2017
The Nike shoe that was the uniform of Italy's 90s club kids

In New York in the 90s, it was wheat-coloured Timberlands - Jay Z would famously pull up every weekend to David Z, a Manhattan shoe retailer, to purchase a fresh pair, giving his week-old shoes to some lucky passer-by. On the West Coast, it was Chuck Taylors, with gang members declaring their Blood or Crip allegiances through their chosen colourway.

Dazed
10/17/2016
How Carhartt WIP became a subcultural phenomenon

On the 8th of August 2011, the staff at the Carhartt WIP outlet on 18 Ellingfort Road in Hackney received a phone call from looters telling them, out of courtesy, that they should vacate the premises. They did.

Dazed
10/13/2016
Menswear label Noah is proving it's punk to care

On the corner of Mulberry Street in Nolita, the historic slice of downtown New York's Little Italy, sits Noah, with a whitewashed façade accented with red and blue. The store is the home to Brendon Babenzien's nascent clothing label, which he launched little under a year ago after leaving his post as design director of Supreme.

Dazed
03/13/2017
The trainer the Daily Mail told you to be scared of

Grime is dead. At least according to photographer Ewen Spencer, who says that today's scene bears little resemblance to the one that first sprung up in the early 2000s. Despite being white, in his 40s and a Geordie, there are perhaps few more qualified to make this assessment.

Dazed
04/10/2017
Remembering Glenn O'Brien, who hated fashion and loved style

American writer and cultural critic Glenn O'Brien passed away at the age of 70 in April of 2017. To many, O'Brien wasn't simply a figure that wrote about pop culture, he was pop culture. Blending music, art and style, seamlessly bridging both mainstream and underground, O'Brien was a trailblazer that paved the way for so much - including publications like this one.

Dazed
01/04/2017
How Factory Records inspired decades of fashion

Last month a small slice of Mancunian history appeared in Miami. Conceived in collaboration with Ben Kelly - the architect responsible for Manchester's iconic but now defunct Haçienda club - designer Virgil Abloh presented his own homage to the historic nightclub venue at Art Basel, in the form of a portable DJ space.

Dazed
10/04/2016
Trying to understand the Supreme brick

On Saturday morning I received a text from my mum. It was a picture of the queue outside London's Supreme store last Thursday, and an article about the branded brick (yes, brick) that the New York streetwear label was selling.

Dazed
08/02/2016
What does Raf Simons at Calvin Klein mean for fashion?

There is no longer any doubt over who will be heading up Calvin Klein, but one question does remain - what will the label look like under Raf Simons' direction? The initial whispers of the designer joining the house elicited mixed reactions, ranging from scepticism to near-tangible excitement.

Dazed
08/11/2016
What the hell is an Art Dad?

If you follow those that Kanye keeps in his inner circle - Virgil Abloh, Theophilus London, Heron Preston - you'll likely have seen a phrase repeated again and again over the past few weeks: Art Dad.

Dazed
01/21/2016
How the lines between streetwear and the runway are blurring

When it was announced at the tail end of last year that burgeoning streetwear brand Stüssy would mark its 35th anniversary with a collaboration with Comme des Garçons' seminal Dover Street Market, the irony would not have been lost on Shawn Stüssy.

Highsnobiety
01/22/2016
Shawn Stussy Biography | Highsnobiety

In the start of a brand new series for Highsnobiety chronicling the lives and careers of prominent figures in the street fashion industry, we kick off with the godfather of them all - a man who helped birth the scene - Mr Shawn Stussy. How do you write an introduction for a man like Shawn Stussy?

Dazed
08/19/2016
Exploring the USSR's underground obsession with Levi's 501s

"When you can make jeans better than Levi's, that will be the time to start talking about national pride," wrote one young, disgruntled reader of (the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) in 1984, as reported in The New York Times.

Dazed
07/22/2016
How exactly did North Face become cool?

To many, a mention of the brand The North Face conjures up ideas rooted in middle-England homogeneity, like warm pints, Land Rovers and thinly-veiled racism. It's something your dad would throw on with wellies to walk the dog on a grey Sunday. Because that's what dads like in their clothes - practicality, comfort, items that require no thought.

Dazed
06/15/2016
The fashion maverick turning bootlegs into art

Heron Preston is a product of the internet. Operating in the creative sub-genre of "What does that guy actually do?" - a decidedly post-internet phenomena in itself - the 32-year-old explains that he now "identifies as an artist."