Simon Spurr Discusses His Return to Men’s Fashion As the Creative Director of Eidos

The designer gives an exclusive preview of his return to ready-to-wear.
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Last week, Eidos announced the appointment of a new creative director—a familiar name who has been away from the spotlight in recent years. That would be the designer Simon Spurr, who in 2012 was considered an emerging force in American fashion. That was when he received a CFDA nomination for best menswear designer for his eponymous brand, which had the rare distinction of being both a critical favorite and retail success. Then, two days after landing the industry stamp of approval, Spurr—who has held top design jobs at Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren—walked away from his namesake label after a dispute with his business partner came to a head. A period of soul-searching followed, and though Spurr took design gigs at Savile Row house Kent & Curwen, and then Gieves & Hawkes, nothing stuck. He started a footwear brand called March NYC last year, which was portrayed as his official return to fashion. But he hasn’t yet had the chance to recreate the magic of Simon Spurr.

Spurr takes over the brand built by Antonio Ciongoli at an interesting moment. Ciongoli, who announced in July he was moving on after nearly five years at the helm, turned Eidos into a perennial insider-favorite, first with soft-shouldered Italian tailoring, and later with bohemian-leaning sportswear. At his best, Spurr offered a promising vision of American tailoring (despite his British upbringing), modernizing sartorial standards like the three-piece suit for the downtown guy. We’re now seeing a return to structured, sharp tailoring from the likes of Berluti, Calvin Klein, and SSS World Corp; Eidos parent company Isaia is a tailoring powerhouse. Will Spurr be able to make his mark? We called him up to discuss his return to ready-to-wear—unsurprisingly, he’s eager to toy with suiting again, but is also making hoodies and thinking about dropping product on Grailed.

GQ Style: So what have you been up to since leaving your brand in 2012?
Simon Spurr: How long have you got? [laughs] Between leaving my brand in 2012 and leaving Kent & Curwen the year before last, I’ve had these two periods of extended time off, so much so that I got quite entrenched in interiors and architecture and furniture design and sculpture. Maybe I was having a bit of a Helmut Lang moment, but I got so excited about new fields that I wondered whether I was going to get back into fashion. But I do actually come from a line of artists on both sides of my family, and on my Mom’s side they’re sculptors, so when I left my brand I was kind of turned on by products and industries that didn’t have the crazy calendar schedule as this industry. In 2016 I actually went to Salone [del Mobile] in Milan and took some of my floorlamps—they’re brass and ostrich skin—and showed them. It was important to me to show myself when I left my brand as more than just an apparel designer. I’m very into light and shadow, space and negative space, and I think actually that’s something you’ll see a lot more of at Eidos.

Two looks from Simon Spurr Fall-Winter 2012.

Edward James
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 12: A model walks the runway at the Simon Spurr Fall 2012 fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Milk Studios on February 12, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Edward James/WireImage)Edward James

What made you get back in the fashion world? Was there something happening in the industry that excited you? Did you find inspiration working on your other projects?
I mean obviously fashion’s going through an interesting time if you’re looking at it from a more sartorial perspective—we’re in a sportswear and streetwear moment. So I’ve definitely taken inspiration from those other projects I was talking about, and obviously working on my own line of boots got me back into it. And I still love what I do, I still have a passion for fashion, and I have a lot of people around me saying, You have to get back into it, don’t do it for yourself do it for us. [laughs] So there was a ton of support around me getting back, and I just took so long because I was trying to find the right fit. Now, for one of the rare occasions in my career, with the people from Isaia I’m working with true craftsmanship and precision. I built my own brand’s reputation on quality and execution. So to have the freedom that Isaia has offered me has been a great opportunity.

As you mentioned, fashion is going through an interesting moment. Has that influenced your thinking at all in terms of where you’re focusing your designs or marketing?
I think the disruption within the industry over the last few years has to make everyone think a different way. If you’re approaching a business today like you were yesterday, or even a year ago, then you’re going to fail. So we have to do business in a different way, whether it’s building e-commerce or eventually getting into drop shipments. Or utilizing the time I’ve had off to make Eidos a more complete lifestyle brand or experiential brand that involves environments and cultural reference points, rather than just being a straight up apparel brand—that’s interesting to me.

Two Sol Lewitt drawings that Spurr says inspired his forthcoming Eidos collection.

What can you tell me about the direction you’re taking Eidos? How do you introduce that lifestyle aspect?
I had a pretty clear brief from [Isaia CEO] Gianluca [Isaia] to keep the brand independent, but elevate it a little bit so that the Eidos customer can move up to Isaia when they have that disposable income. So I think the collection itself will have a little more color in it, it’ll still be very wearable, but the way it’ll be styled will be a little more European. And then my reference points will hopefully bring a cultural aspect to it. In the time off I’m heavily influenced by artists like Carmen Herrera and Sol Lewitt, and the kind of methodology and the mathematics behind their approach to creating their work. I want to underscore the intellectuality of the brand and increase that out-of-the-box thinking.

Are you designing with a specific customer in mind? Who do you imagine is your customer?
Where I see the brand fitting in is this guy is aspirationally buying Bottega and Berluti, but is also buying Officine Générale and APC.

What does being a New York designer mean to you?
I probably only know how to be a New York designer. Next year is my 20-year anniversary in New York. But New York is a multicultural epicenter of the world, it’s a very democratic kind of environment—I don’t mean politically—where you have to be very aware of everyone that’s here, consumer demands and needs and taste levels, and it’s international and very culturally saturated. For me it’s one of the best places to be. I think American menswear in the past has gotten a bit of a bad rap, it’s been so commercial, but now Thom Browne’s been on the scene for a good number of years, you’ve got Raf Simons at Calvin Klein, and I think people are starting to embrace smaller brands as well as consumers look away from overly-distributed brands. They’re looking for smaller, more independent brands, which is one of the things that attracted me to Eidos. So I guess New York for me is about having an international point of view. I don’t know if a Parisian designer would say the same thing. And one big difference I’d say as a European in America is you can still get things done here. You can still meet a stranger in a bar and they’ll open up their rolodex and help you out and make connections within 30 minutes of talking to them. That doesn’t happen in Europe. Sorry to coin a phrase, but it is still the land of opportunity. Could I have achieved what I achieved at Simon Spurr had I done that in London? Probably not.

Spurr at the 2012 CFDA Award nominee announcement.

Mike Coppola

How do you intend to roll out your first Eidos collection in January? Are you planning on doing a runway show? Will you even run the brand seasonally?
The first season as you can imagine is a very complex one as we’re going through a whole rebranding exercise. So the first season will probably be a smaller scale, and we’ll be showing in a showroom presentation in Milan and New York in January. I don’t know if Eidos is a runway brand just yet. I think it might get there in time. But that said, I do see doing drop shipments, or special exclusive shipments, to certain special retailers or websites like Grailed. I think you have to embrace that new approach, because customers want newness. They don’t want to wait. And it’s actually quite nice for designers because you’re constantly designing. Once you sit and design a seasonal collection it’s a six-to-nine-month cycle of looking at the product, but the creative brain moves faster than that. Thankfully I’m already working on pre-spring, before I’ve even seen the first collection.

So is the first collection pretty tailoring focused? Or more sportswear?
No, it’s both. My brief was obviously to increase the amount of tailored clothing in there, so I started with tailoring. Ostensibly the sportswear and the tailoring can fit together, they mesh very well together, but I believe they’re strong enough to stand alone. So I would say it’s probably 55% sportswear and 45% tailoring. But there’s also relevant product in there for the consumer, for the editors. We’ve got logoed hooded sweatshirts, so there are some streetwear elements in there, but done in an Eidos way. I’ve confused you now, but you’ll see it.


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