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Nothing Nothing offers an existentialist fashion experience. Marian Buckley reports.
Nothing Nothing was launched in September 1999 by Julian Roberts. Julian is 28 and originally hails from the soporific seaside town of Worthing. He first studied fashion at The University of Northumbria in Newcastle and whilst there took a year out to work for Katharine Hamnett and John Richmond. After his degree, he was accepted onto the Royal College of Art's prestigious Fashion MA course. In his two years at the RCA, he developed his design techniques and experimented with art installations and video. Julian went to work as an assistant designer for Jasper Conran where he stayed for two years. Frustrated with working for another designer and at not being able to explore his passion for pattern cutting, Julian left ("pattern cutting is the main reason why I got into fashion"). He returned to Worthing to develop the first Nothing Nothing collection, which was shown off-schedule during London Fashion Week. Inspired by genetics, the spring/summer 2000 show won Julian instant respect and resulted in New Generation Marks and Spencer sponsorship which enabled the second Nothing Nothing collection to be shown on the official Fashion Week schedule.
see the full autumn/winter show report here	The latest Nothing Nothing collection for winter 2000/1 is entitled 'The Lagoes Project'. Lagoes is a satellite which was sent into orbit in 1976 and has an estimated lifespan of 8,000,000 years. The 31 piece collection focuses on frocks and includes such innovations as coil, tunnel, void and nothing special dresses. Leather and cotton along with synthetic fabrics give the impression light, fluid, movement on a range of unconventional shapes. Unlike so many male designers of womenswear, Julian's work is sexy in a subtle way. There are no tacky plunging necklines revealing nude nipples or backless dresses that serve as an excuse to show models' bums. The outfits are beguiling and contradictory - giving the impression of simplicity but look closely and you can see each possesses a unique geometry.
Whilst working for Conran, Julian had to suppress his pattern cutting desires. "I had this real urge to have to cut patterns and new shapes," he says. "It's like if you are a singer you have to sing and I had to cut patterns." Nothing Nothing's collections emerge from intense pattern cutting sessions: Julian gets down on the floor with paper, ruler, scissors and sticky tape and creates. "I don't like the idea of doing a drawing and handing it to a pattern cutter and they go away and make it and you sit there while it's fitted, you direct people to do things. I like to actually be on the floor cutting the pattern, cos I can't explain to somebody how I want it to be cut, the whole thing is an experimental process, I don't know what I'm doing until it ends up as a finished garment and it's not something I can really delegate."
listen to the interview with julian	His inspiration comes from music ("It's an incredible thing, it feeds on your emotions"), television adverts, books and videos. The philosophy driving Nothing Nothing is existentialism and the first collection ("Which was untitled, it was called nothing") explored the nothingness of the garments. "Holes were the main theme behind all the patterns and yet a hole is actually nothing and so I like the fact that what you add to the pattern to make it do something strange is actually nothing."
Future collections will continue to experiment with new shapes and forms in stark contrast with mainstream fashion's current obsession with all things passed. Nothing Nothing believes that 21st century fashion can reinvent itself and discover new forms of expression. "There are as many different styles and shapes to discover in the next thousand years as there have been over the last thousand years," says Julian. Hopefully, more designers will stop pressing their own creative rewind buttons and fast forward us into something new.

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