London Is the Place For Nicholas Daley
This article is part of Not In London, a multi-media celebration of the English cultural capital. With parties, a pop-up store, brand collaborations, and more, check it out here.
On a typically drizzly London afternoon, we caught up with Nicholas Daley while digging through the crates in his favorite record store: Kingsland Records in Dalston.
“I probably love fashion and music just as much as each other,” says the London-based designer, taking a moment after listing his favorite venues in the city — Corsica, Jazz Cafe, Coco, Jumbie, Colour Factory, Cafe OTO, Venue MOT, The Shacklewell Arms… an extensive list — “It's like the yin and yang of my creative philosophy, I guess.”
The designer tries to watch live music at least once a week and is deeply tapped into London’s music scene (many of the records around us are by artists Daley has collaborated with, the likes of Yussef Dayes, Mansur Brown, and Alfa Mist).
Having parents who founded one of Scotland’s first reggae clubs no doubt helped instill this love of music in Daley. And it is fitting that the designer's latest project, an exclusive capsule collection for Highsnobiety’s Not In London, was inspired by calypso music, the precursor to reggae.
A three-piece drop, consisting of a crochet bucket hat, a scarf, and a T-shirt, the collection centers around the phrase London is the place for me, the title of a song from 1951 by pioneering Trinidadian calypso singer Lord Kitchener — otherwise known as the grand master of calypso.
“It's a tune which embodies what I think London is about, and the complexities of it. When people left the Caribbean to come to London, there was an air of optimism with the Windrush generation. They were met with a lot of hostility, prejudice, racism, and brutality,” says Daley.
“But it brought an endless amount of really amazing things, which have had an impact that we see today across so many different mediums, whether it's music, fashion, or culture. In a time of hostility and a very complex political backdrop worldwide, I think it's important as creatives and designers to remember where [things] came from and what our grandparents or parents had to get through to get to this point.”
The Windrush generation, named after the boat HMT Empire Windrush which brought Caribbean migrants to England, refers to the estimated 500,000 people who came to the UK from Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean between 1948 and 1971. Brought over to bolster the UK’s workforce, many of the migrants had been part of the British army in the Second World War and were enticed by stories of a better life in Britain.
Lord Kitchener, real name Aldwyn Roberts, was one of those on HMT Empire Windrush and he wrote London Is The Place For Me while on board. He even sang the song to a reporter when the boat docked at Tilbury in Essex in June 1948. Unfortunately, the optimism of Kitchener and those on board soon dwindled: once in England, they faced widespread discrimination and exploitation.
“So boys, if you brown they say you can stick around. If you white, well everything’s alright. If your skin is dark, no use to try. You got to suffer until you die,” Lord Kitchener later sings on the song If You’re Brown.
For Daley, whose Jamaican-Scottish heritage has always been at the forefront of his brand, he didn’t only select Lord Kitchener’s song for its historic significance, he also found a personal message in its title: “London is the place for me right now, I'm proud to see people coming out on the streets to protest in many different ways,” he says. “But yeah, nothing's perfect.”
As much as this is a collection highlighting the Windrush generation — its suffering as well as its cultural impact — it's also a reflection of Daley. The tartan scarf is a reference to his Scottish roots while the hat’s big shape is designed to house his dreadlocks and is knitted together: “Hand knitting is a big part of my ancestral lineage. My mum, my grandma, they all knitted. It's a big thing in Jamaica,” says Daley.
Within three items, the designer has spun a multi-faceted story about his heritage, England’s dark history, and his personal feelings about the city he calls home. But for LVMH Prize-winning Daley, this level of storytelling is nothing out of the ordinary.
Since its founding in 2015, Nicholas Daley, the brand, has built a distinct world view through the lens of Daley’s heritage. In everything the London-based designer makes, there are layers of history, culture, and artistry to be discovered.
