Rhiannon D’Averc spoke to Simon Mo after his presentation, which featured animal statues and racing drumbeats alongside models accessorised with collars and fur tail earrings.
Images by Simon Armstrong
LR: Tell us a little bit about the show!
Simon: It was based on one of my dreams, I was able to talk to animals. When I got up, I felt that I should do a collection for animals, so I started to research the human relationship with animals and the history. I was very surprised that our lives actually have a lot of things to do with animals. But I didn’t want to do a literal animal collection. What I wanted to do was more a topic of how can we protect them, and how can we free them, in a good way. So I wanted to find that good, innocent time when we were little, how we loved animals.
LR: Tell us about the charity that you’re working with, Freedom for Animals.
Simon: It’s quite surprising that there are still very good charity groups that are doing very good things for animals. I have cats at home, and I feel animals are our lifelong friends. We don’t use them – we need to be with them. We need to create a good environment for animals. I did a lot of translation in my mind, for example the crochet and knitwear, and there’s a lot of prints. There’s a circus element. Sometimes we want to wear fur, and it’s very harmful, but we’re making it into a print or making it into something else, to keep the spirit.
LR: There’s lots of different textures that we noticed, and the accessories too. The collars with bells.
Simon: I wanted to portray the idea into the accessories and integrate the atmosphere. If youare wearing a bell with a chain, then how do you feel? There is a lot of emotion I wanted to put into this collection. I wanted people to be in my dream.
