In this edition Simon Martelo’s creation process will be shown through Juan Pablo Mejías’ eyes. Simon, with experience managing fashion related businesses, created the blazer and coat brand Too Cool for School. His aim is to deliver a service that breaks with vertical relationships between designer and client, generating a new way of creating, which rescues traditions where designer and client coexist and interact in a horizontal dynamic. The portfolio is photographed by designer Juan Pablo Mejía, who manages to highlight one of the main values behind Simon’s work, which is to create quality garments that are part of the cosmology of the Colombian man.

Simon considers tailoring to be an important Colombian tradition. He knows its history and is attempting to rescue it. The materials he uses correspond to the rescuing of traditions, exploring raw materials that were essential to this recent past. This is how the immigration of materials (such as English flannel and Italian silk) in the manufacturing of formal men’s suits are a referent that help him understand the tailoring service within a contemporary context. He investigates the tailor’s traditional trade and explores the possibilities for today’s client.

Simon believes that tailoring has lost strength in comparison to industrialised processes, however, he knows that there are still men out there who look for personalised garments. The manual work he carries out is of the highest quality, detailed and time-consuming, aiming to generate garments suitable to their context but that speak of other times, which had different standards.

The Too Cool For School client is not a passive consumer but one who has responsibility in the design process and the tailoring of the garment. The jackets’ design is a result of a dialogue between Simon and the client, who in this interaction becomes a direct co-creator of the garment. The process begins with a series of patterns, materials and style choices presented by Simon. Afterwards, the client selects, modifies and proposes their garment; measurements are taken and the client has to make final revisions and corrections. Finally, the client ends up with an unrepeatable bespoke garment.

The garments therefore fulfill each person’s specific needs. Simon’s tailoring service can make the desire of having a coat become more than an ephemeral ambition, adding value to the shopping experience.

The garments therefore fulfill each person’s specific needs. Simon’s tailoring service can make the desire of having a coat become more than an ephemeral ambition, adding value to the shopping experience.

Juan Pablo visually connects materials, garments, workspace and sale, and makes us understand the meticulousness of the tailoring service through images. In his own words: “Time is the process which facilitates the search for understanding and defining, for exploring, questioning, rethinking, that’s what Too Cool for School is about”. His photographic work is characterised by its close-cropped frames and for being precise and clean, all elements which help understand the images when looking at them as a whole rather than individually.

Photographer's Contact · Juan Pablo Mejía · WEB

Designer Contacto · Simón Martelo (Too Cool for School) · WEB