In 2022, Constantinou, 24, graduated from Central Saint Martins with an MA in fashion design. Shortly after, he was awarded the prestigious ITS Academy Award for emerging designers, held annually in Trieste, Italy. This year, he was a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize. Just like his nature-inspired color palette, Constantinou’s road to fashion design was organic. “I got to a point where I stopped buying clothes and I started making everything myself, and then making things for friends,” says Constantinou. “I made a portfolio of sketches when I was 18 and I got into a small university and I had to learn everything from scratch. I remember on one of my first days asking how to thread a sewing machine [laughs]. But I put in the work and I caught up to my more experienced classmates within a year or two.”
Still living in the town he was born in—all of Constantinou’s family lives within 15 to 20 minutes of each other—he’s used to being surrounded by not only the Cypriot diaspora, but myriad other cultures, too. “Cyprus is an island that’s been under so many different empires—it has connections to Egypt and Rome, but also the Middle East and the West into Britain, which I find really interesting,” he says. “Even though we call ourselves Greeks we’re not really Greeks, or even Turkish.”
The Charlie Constantinou aesthetic has been described as cyberpunk, crafty couture, sci-fi, and gorp, but none of these labels really do it justice. Delightfully alien and very made-by-hand, the brand is challenging to categorize because Constantinou’s output is tapped into a rare blend of cultures from centuries past and future. His use of fabric (all deadstock), dyeing (all original colors), and garment construction (see: quilted nylon), is forward-thinking while his reverence for history comes from a place of curiosity rather than blind nostalgia.
From his studio in London, Constantinou offers a glimpse at how he’s creating his own design mythology.
When did you start paying attention to clothing?
I started training in piano and music when I was 11 years old, and up until 18 my plan was to study music composition for film. But when I started working at 16, I got a job at a sneaker store, which led me to streetwear.
I started to develop my love for fashion when I discovered Undercover. I never felt represented within the luxury side of the industry, but in the past 10 years we’ve seen younger people taking bigger roles in the industry, even people with a similar background to me. Seeing someone like Nasir [Mazhar] from my own country is a huge reality check that you can actually be in that place as well.\
Does your background in music play a role in how you approach design?
It plays a big role. Film scores and cinema give you out-of-this-world experiences. I create little research books for each season and there’s always quite a random collection of influences in there. On one page I might have ancient artifacts, followed by a page of manga or video game references. I like trying to mesh otherworldly concepts with lived reality.
What fictional worlds inspire you the most?
When it comes to manga, I’m a huge fan of One Piece [by Eiichiro Oda]. All the films I grew up watching inspire me, too. Superhero movies. Star Wars. Desolate planets with extreme weather. I would love to be able to do wardrobe for a film like that, but make everything very wearable at the same time. The outerwear brand Columbia made a Princess Leia–inspired jacket from The Empire Strikes Back. Things like that are really interesting to me.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY MULTIPLE NEW TROUSERS WHEN YOU HAVE ONE PAIR THAT TRANSFORMS.”
How do you define functionality, and how do you apply this to your designs?
It comes down to asking what I want the actual use of a garment to be. Take the adjustable zip trouser, for example. The whole idea is, yes, it looks nice, but you also have a trouser with five different fits in one. The construction of the zippers is designed so that you can wear them differently every single day. It’s also addressing the need to constantly consume. You don’t have to buy multiple new trousers when you have one pair that transforms. We want to allow the person wearing them to customize the fit for themselves. If you can make a piece fully adjustable, it could eventually become a one-size-fits-all garment and then it gets rid of the need to do big batches of grading and size runs, because you can have a single, adaptable thing. Functionality in general comes from the idea that something can have more than just one use.
You’re building a uniform in a way, without the rigidity traditionally associated with that word.
There’s definitely an element of uniformity to it, but we’re breaking away from that idea at the same time. We’re moving away from doing collections in the traditional seasonal way, too. We’re launching the second “season” this summer, but there are many seasonless elements. Being able to constantly adapt to the elements around you is very important.
Tell me about the quilted nylon pieces.
We developed that technique as another way of looking at adaptability. The fabric can expand and grow with the person wearing it. The quilted nylon bag can grow and shrink depending on how much stuff is in it. Taking a synthetic fabric and making it look organic is also really interesting to me. It looks out of nature but the man-made element makes it so durable.
What can you share about Charlie Constantinou season three?
We’re carrying over elements from the first two collections, but continuing our research and exploring new worlds. For me, each season is about expanding. References come back from old collections with new meaning. Season three will include womenswear, too.
Tell me about your 66°North collaboration.
We shot the campaign in February in Iceland. They reached out to me after I finished my MA and asked if I’d like to come to Iceland, and I was like, yeah of course [laughs]. It’s the only brand that I’ve come across where they are their country. They have this crazy statistic that like 96% of the country owns at least one 66°North garment because the whole company has been built in Iceland from the ground up. They have such a great foundation, and I wanted to have the creative control to bring new things to the table. They let me have a sense of direction and the whole process was very collaborative. Iceland has so many different extreme environments which is a major inspiration for us. We wanted to apply their heritage to our vision.
Do you work solo or with a team?
It’s pretty much just me, and then I work directly with my local factory. But since I’m working on season three now and I’m going to take on two interns. I think the biggest struggle for a new brand is actually setting up the business. Once you get past that hurdle it’s about building an infrastructure. We don’t overproduce—when working with stores we ask for minimal numbers for difficult pieces like our knitwear. We make everything locally so that we can manage. I want it to grow organically. We’re not even doing shows. If we had that burden every six months I think it would be so crazy. For me it’s more important if a collection feels finished and I’m happy with it, than to rush it for the sake of doing a showroom. The goal is to look back and feel like past collections are a complete body of work.
