LFWSS25 - "Momento Mori": The Winter House Reminds All this Fashion Season of Our Earth-bound Reality

The Winter House, founded in 2022 by Liam Winter, is an avant-garde British jewellery brand that made its debut appearance during London Fashion Week SS24. Their brand visuals are inspired by “the fringes of the city, the idea of margins and what exists outside of the collective gaze”. Their collection challenges normative associations between jewellery and prestige by modelling pieces on “the mundane and what is often overlooked”: Earrings are modelled on thorns and thistles, necklaces resemble barbed wire, and door keys are reimagined as a crucifix pendants. Most strikingly, the brand’s visuals trouble the boundaries between the vital and artifice, between nature and the cityscape:

 “Metal against skin becomes a metaphor for ivy against concrete,

nature against the city.”

Through this bold reimagining of the body as the city, and metal as life, The Winter House’s collection reminds us that artificial works - whether they manifest as skyscrapers or pendant necklaces - always emerge from natural resources. In this sense, the collection blurs the boundaries between the jewellery, its creator, and those who wear it. Indeed, the Winter House’s designers lay emphasis on the vitality of their mercurial pieces:

“The resulting works are alive, with the appearance of desire, lust and hunger, as they grow and move across the body. Working with recycled silver sourced within London which is melted and repurposed, the material carries the memories of the past, walks with the wearer today, and will live on beyond this lifetime embedded with this essence through time eternal.”

The Winter House’s emphasis on the lifetime of their pieces, as well as their sustainable mode of production, bode well with the recent shift towards sustainable, slow fashion. The visible craftedness of each piece challenges the alienation between creators and consumers that fast fashion has engendered. Whilst perusing their homepage, I was mesmerised by how the creative process was embedded in each piece: no piece of silver is perfectly polished, geometric shapes are always in interaction with the organic, and each form is highly sculptural. In an age of mass manufacturing and sweatshops, leaving visible traces of the creative processes behind products is quietly revolutionary.

Although The Winter House’s aesthetics centre the mundane and overlooked elements of the cityscape, we also find elements of the divine throughout the collection. For example, “The Veiled Cross” ring, the crucifix key pendant (“The Master’s Key”), and the “Thorn Chain Bracelet” resonate with biblical imagery. By associating the divine with marginal objects and rebellious elements such as sharp studs, chains, and padlocks, the brand dislodges the idea that the divine is solely found in the conventionally “beautiful”. Whilst the message that God exists in the mundane and the marginal might be especially relevant to believers, we may all benefit from considering how common objects such as keys and padlocks carry archetypal significance. The creators write:

“These items bear the immense responsibility of capturing a moment in time, space, and culture. It is crucial that our creations are honest, considered and purposeful because they are our story”

Sources

British Fashion Council, “The Winter House”, London Fashion Week, 2024 <https://londonfashionweek.co.uk/designers/the-winter-house> (Accessed: 8 September 2024)

The Winter House Ltd., 2024  <https://thewinterhouse.com/pages/stockist> (Accessed: 8 September 2024)

And post-show attendance...

After their debut showcase during London Fashion Week SS24, The Winter House, returned this autumn to exhibit a quietly gothic jewellery collection that combined street style with the supernatural. The collection, titled “All Flesh is Grass”, blurs the boundaries between humans and their environments, and emphasises the ephemeral nature of life.

The sterling silver pieces prompted meditations upon how all creations, be they humans, insects, or indeed jewels, are transient phenomena which derive from nature. The “Momento Mori” ring depicts a sleeping woman whose face can be lifted to reveal her skull. The use of “momento” as opposed to the latin “Memento” reflects how the interactive locket ring enables its wearer to enact the moment of death with the flick of a finger. Further echoes of the theme of the transience of life are embedded in the moth-infested crucifix ring. The ruby-encrusted centre evoked the symbol of the blood of Christ, and the flurry of moths seemed to suggest that even the sacred is inextricably bound to the physical and the natural.

What does it mean, then, that high-end jewellery brand promotes humility in the face of natural forces? After all, fine jewellery is often associated with ego-related notions of prestige, status, and glamour. The collection seems to serve as a reminder of how even the most precious jewellery derives from the environment, urging jewellers to prioritise sustainable modes of production. This aligns with The Winter House’s values: the creators pride themselves on their use of locally sourced materials, small-scale production, and their hand-crafted products. The exhibition laid emphasis on the “createdness” of the pieces: one of the jewellers sat at a spotlit table in the centre of the room, moulding silver into thorns, padlocks and chains. It was mesmerising to watch!

It was a privilege to attend such a unique, thought-provoking fashion exhibition. The Winter House’s artistic concepts speak to the philosophical and political ideas that our generation holds dear, and on behalf of Strand Magazine, we look forward to seeing them evolve!

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Written by Teeva Tamali

Edited by Holly Anderson, Fashion Editor

All photos taken by Hadia Malik