the wellington college year book 2010/2011
110
It’s a bit like the British Army, you don’t turn
up to battle in whatever you want to wear.
Of course it’s restricting and if you weren’t
allowed to wear casual clothes ever it’d
be a different matter. I don’t think it’s that
important for people to develop their own
sense of personal style at 15. You grow out of
clothes so fast. Plus your mother has to sew
in name tapes to all these fancy clothes?!
j: Did you have a teacher at Wellington that
was particularly stylish in your opinion??
m: I think Wellington teachers weren’t the
most stylish in general.
j: This is going into a Wellington magazine just
so you know?…
m: I know, I’m not afraid to say it?!
But seriously there’s a certain appeal to
general teacher fashion, like we still make
corduroy trousers, and even jackets with
leather elbow patches, because it’s cool. I
don’t honestly remember many people having
a good sense of style. I remember the Master,
Jonty Driver, and all he wore was that gown.
d: He used to wear a cool waistcoat
though.
j: Recently Wellington have introduced a textile
department which is really popular with the girls.
d: They didn’t have anything like that when
I was there, we had an Art department?…
m:?…which was like lino-printing
d: I got Art a level though?—?and I got an a?!
m: If you’re interested in textiles and get the
opportunity to learn the process from a young
age, that’s extremely important. Especially if
you are artistic and creative, it’s important to
understand how fabrics are made and how
textiles are created or designed.
j: It’s become really popular. We had a fashion
show when I was there, featuring the textiles we
had designed. We got clothes from Nike and
Amanda Wakeley to put in it and raised money
for breast cancer charities?—?it was awesome.
So was Wellington the start of r & b??
d: Well, we were at school together at
Wellington. Then we both went to university
in the north east, Newcastle and Durham, and
studied Geography and cell biology. Neither
of us studied fashion. Then we went into
different businesses. Marcus set up a pretty
successful telecoms business, I was working in
an investment bank. Marcus could take some
time off because he owned the company and
he did some travelling. He met a girl on the
To us, the influence
fromWellington,
is British Heritage,
married to the
streets of
NewYork
beach in Mexico and followed her to New
York. She is now his wife. In New York
Marcus had the idea to start making some
men’s jea