Vexed Generation

Vexed Generation was founded in 1994 by Joe Hunter (b. 1967) and Adam Thorpe (b. 1969) in response to the British government’s proposed Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. In 1995 they opened a retail store at 12 Newburgh Street, Soho, London. The initial store installation created an unsettling retail environment, with whited-out windows, gravel white marble chippings as flooring, CCTV cameras and no visible staff. Clothing was hung within a large glass box, accessible only through hand-sized holes similar to those found in incubation chambers. The walls featured statistics such as ‘Asthma kills 2,000 children and adults a year in the UK’. In December 1996 they relocated to the first floor of 3 Berwick Street, London. The new shop featured a yellow sun filter on the windows, a blue-tinted light box mounted on the ceiling and bright green walls. The garments were suspended from the walls via ‘breathing lungs’, which were inflatables inserted into the garments to give them shape.

Vexed Generation were early adopters of the internet as a platform for disseminating their work and challenging ideas about fashion communication and marketing; for example, if visitors did not first read the designer’s manifesto before viewing the garments, their website automatically locked them out for twenty-four hours. In 1994 the company introduced the Vexed one-strap bag which was later produced under licence by the American bag company Yak Pak. In 1998 Vexed Generation launched a second label, Crusader 21, that was focused on performance utility-wear. The name was inspired by the British Army, which pioneered a three-layer uniform system capable of withstanding extreme weather and environmental conditions. They launched VexeDenim in 1998 and were among the first fashion brands to use DuPont Teflon fabric protector on denim. Vexed Generation partnered with PUMA in 2003 to design two clothing ranges drawing on their technical and functional aesthetic. Vexed Generation was voluntarily wound up in 2007, and Vexed Design was founded later that year to carry on the designers’ socially responsive ethos through collaboration and consultation with several household names. In 2018, in conjunction with Byronesque and online retailer FARFETCH, the label reissued eleven designs from their past collections.
Sources: Business Wire; Design Week; Drapers; Independent on Sunday; Menswear; Sydney Morning Herald; The Guardian; The Independent; WWD.