{"id":2077071,"date":"2026-08-04T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2077071"},"modified":"2026-08-04T12:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T09:00:25","slug":"edward-cuming-thinks-menswear-should-be-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2077071","title":{"rendered":"Edward Cuming Thinks Menswear Should Be Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photos: Carlos Folmo; Courtesy of Edward Cuming<\/span><\/div>\n

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Fashion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Edward Cuming Thinks Menswear Should Be Fun<\/h1>\n
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The Madrid-based designer talks about slowing down his process and embracing the basics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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by Kevin LeBlanc<\/a><\/address>\n
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NYLON Guys August 2026<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Edward Cuming considers himself a chill person. Despite being over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Paris when he Zooms in from his showroom, he really is the picture of a calm and collected fashion designer. The words \u201ccalm\u201d and \u201cfashion designer\u201d are not usually held in the same phrase, but when you\u2019ve dialed in on what works for you and your eponymous brand over the course of seven years like Cuming has, you reach a certain state of zen. It doesn\u2019t hurt that in recent years, everyone from Ayo Edebiri to Guitarricadelafuente has bought in on his wondrous alchemy.<\/p>\n

Cuming, 33, stumbled into fashion in high school, when he was enrolled in an agricultural program and asked if he could switch to any other curriculum. The only other choice: textiles. \u201cIt was literal cow sh*t or tulle skirts,\u201d he reminisces with a laugh. But from his very first piece inspired by Tim Burton\u2019s Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em>, he was enraptured by the endless possibilities that come with a roll of fabric. He studied at Central Saint Martins in London, where his graduate collection earned him orders from boutiques.<\/p>\n

Today, the Australian-born, Madrid-based man behind the clothes (who friends refer to as Eddie) considers his clothes to hold the same easy-going vibe as himself. Looking at them, you might be surprised, given his penchant for sequined leg warmers and unusual color combinations. There is a maximalist streak in his collections, with jacquards playing with unfinished hems and randomly sewed-on patches interrupting vibrant contrasting fabrics, but as he tells me, \u201cThe brand might not necessarily look like it\u2019s rooted in [classic pieces, but] if you pick it all apart, it is.\u201d The cornerstone of his brand are basics done the Cuming way. He started in 2019 with menswear but eventually expanded to design for both men and women; he says both need each other and that finding the balance between both has informed his designs for both collections. He\u2019s amassed a devoted following with men who shop at places like Departmento in Los Angeles and love to scroll on Ssense, and women who do the same. Cuming presents biannually during men\u2019s week,<\/a> but feels like the brand sits at a true 50\/50 split \u2014 the modern playbook for brands that want to be truly unisex.<\/p>\n

Here, Cuming talks how dressing for men and women both can (and cannot) be interchangeable, growing a brand, and how referencing one\u2019s self is the most important mood board you could ever put together.<\/p>\n

How have you felt about the steady growth of your brand, and how important has it been for you to do it on your own terms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steady growth has been important for me. From the moment I took on the first production, I felt a big responsibility to do it right, make the clothes properly, deliver on time, and make sure everyone contributing to what I was doing was being given the attention they needed. My priority was building those foundations for how a business would run, as opposed to what the brand really meant. I felt like whatever I had developed while at CSM was strong enough to resonate already with consumers and a few people in the industry. That already felt like such a big deal to me. Maybe it wasn\u2019t as big as some other brands, but on a very small scale, it already felt like that for me.<\/p>\n

So I was like, well, we\u2019ve got to take that and set us all up for this to be able to keep going. I was more interested in quietly building a business that made sense and not the other way around. I think sometimes businesses are built before there\u2019s really anything there or even a need for it or a market. I don\u2019t know what the right approach is. I don\u2019t think there is one. I think the other way can work for some people. I think it\u2019s also about personality. I\u2019m really, really strict with myself to have balance in my life and not lose sight of all of those things outside of fashion or work that I do need to be able to keep going. I guess it wasn\u2019t a strategic decision, it\u2019s just kind of who I am, I suppose.<\/p>\n

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Carlos Folmo<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

I love that jeans have become a cornerstone of your offering. Where did the love for denim come from, and why was it so important for you to have that as a tentpole?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the things I was doing, whether it be a top, shirt, or a dress, always looked really great with a pair of jeans. The stylist I\u2019ve worked with forever [Patricia Villirillo] and I have a real obsession with classic clothes, even though the brand might not necessarily look like it\u2019s rooted in that. If you really pick it all apart, though, it is. I love polo shirts. I love simple button-downs. I really love a tailored trouser. It\u2019s really built on, for want of a better term, essentials. With jeans, early on, it was like, we need to make that happen because it\u2019s going to allow us to play with the high and the low and the loud and the quiet and play with those contrasts. It\u2019s such a big part of how we style the collections, and how we see the brand as a team. When the idea came for using the name and having it be punchy and fun \u2014 but not falling into a really obvious visual root of what that could be \u2014 that was really exciting as well. And it just hit off.<\/p>\n

You have such a love for texture and colors and that might be difficult for some people to wear, but there is an ease to the clothes themselves. It does come down to great basics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s pieces every season we try to push, even with complicated fabrications. We try to work on draping, or something like a complicated skirt. We push ourselves, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn\u2019t. That\u2019s what I like about any given season, is that we can take a risk with maybe the image or look, and it\u2019ll land for some people. Some people are like, \u201cWhat the hell is that? And where did that come from? Stay in your lane.\u201d But I don\u2019t care. I think that\u2019s the only way to live. Why not do that? Everything can feel so edited nowadays, and so merchandised and perfect. There\u2019s such prescriptiveness in what taste is. Sometimes, you start to wonder: What even is your own taste? And why don\u2019t I stick a massive stick in that for a season and go against it? It\u2019s the only way to move forward, because then you become complacent. It\u2019s like fashion school 101, but it really works. It\u2019s important to keep it fresh for yourself in that way.<\/p>\n

I was listening to Charli xcx in her Rolling Stone<\/em> interview<\/a> talk about how her albums are responses to each other, like magnets pushing each other the opposite way. A great designer should hold that ethos to be true: to have the essence of who they are, then realize that going a completely different way is what they need.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also about the confidence, faith, and trust in yourself to know that no matter what you tackle, as long as you\u2019re doing it and doing it from an honest place, it\u2019s going to come out looking like you no matter what. As long as you are in tune with who you are as a creative person, you can\u2019t really avoid it. This season specifically, I was saying, \u201cThis is a chilled season. Visually, it\u2019s calm.\u201d I was really<\/em> trying to make myself do something calm. There are so many textures and all these wonderful fabrics. There are calm elements, but then they looked at the rail and they were like, \u201cWhat the f*ck? That is not calm.\u201d Water finds its own level somehow, but then you push yourself somewhere new in that process.<\/p>\n

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Fabric is super important, but also the color play. Tell me about challenging yourself with color combinations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a similar way to Ms. Charli xcx<\/a>, we are reacting to what we\u2019ve done before. We\u2019re so hands-on in the studio with these collections. It\u2019s not like it\u2019s a month of launching and then we forget about it for six weeks and then it all arrives, then you style it and it\u2019s done. It\u2019s a very slow process. When we fill the studio with whatever the season is, sometimes you need a palate cleanser and that will often be a natural reaction to whatever came before. Some seasons, I\u2019ll be working specifically because I have a reference that\u2019s going to inform the fabric sourcing, which is the first stage of the collection. It was maybe Fall\/Winter 2022 where it was really inspired by interior spaces. It was the casual or uncontrived combinations of textures you could find in any personal home space. Since then, that\u2019s truly the concept. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a new talking point every season and it\u2019s not just that, but if you ask me truly, I could say it\u2019s that every season. I\u2019m always looking at a domestic space and thinking, \u201cOh wow, that couch and that carpet and the spine of that book and that coffee cup together is heaven on earth.\u201d That\u2019s what trying to create with every collection is \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s the highest possibility of being able to re-create those kinds of visual moments with what you\u2019ve got on all the rails and just see what happens.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so interesting to hear you say that because there is a lived-in quality to your clothes. It feels like there\u2019s not a preciousness about it. How do you make imperfect shirting?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the brand, I\u2019ve been interested in taking humble fabrics and elevating them through washing or dyeing in more unconventional ways than just straight-up garment dyeing. A lot of the early pieces would be dyed by sewing a patch of lining on the back of a white shirt, and then thrown in the wash to bleed out and dye everything else around it. It was that quality that I found interesting, because the process was not up to me and it was not controllable.<\/p>\n

I saw myself going mad if I was going to have to control these things. So I thought, let\u2019s lean into that lived-in quality. Let\u2019s lean into that nature of things being repeatedly used and washed and maybe even a little destroyed. Let\u2019s lean into that as a type of luxury. When I first started, I started clocking clothes, and everything felt so polished or manufactured. When I worked in a big retail company, it was boxes and boxes of pressed clothing coming every day to be analyzed, and you feel like there\u2019s something missing. There\u2019s a hand to them that\u2019s not there because there is<\/em> no hand.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost spiritual \u2014 and I\u2019m not super spiritual. You can feel it. It\u2019s an aura around things. I wanted to find a way to up and cut away, to create textiles you have no other way to develop or don\u2019t want to develop at a big scale. If you start to take notions and ideas to textile factories to get them replicated, they can be successful, but sometimes they get flattened because of the nature of mass production. So I think the other shirts are a really good example because it\u2019s still a place that we still have this intervention with putting away in a lot of places.<\/p>\n

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