Later this week, Delphin Musquet will release the first items of his Sans Patrie fashion line realising a dream years in the making and unifying his business ventures.
Musquet, the founder and creative director of the Shoreditch, London, tattoo studio of the same name, has hired Farhad Hakim to help design the collection.
Hakim has worked with major brands including Adidas and Reebok, spent time on Saville Row, and was the go-to designer for Lucien Clarke during the period the skateboarder and creative got sponsored and walked the catwalk for Louis Vuitton, and launched his brand, DCV87.
The first drop of the Sans Patrie collection is still being finalised, but Musquet says the brand hopes to launch a full outfit on February 24 and “refine and build” from there.
As a rule, “everything is going to be quite baggy, but cropped for the tops,” Musquet says, of the collection.
The maiden range is denim and consists of a cropped, collarless, up-cycled-look jacket with snap buttons; wide-leg trousers with a “cowboy, carpenter-style (double-knee) front” – but with the overlay raised to thigh-height – a cropped hoodie that also “catches” on the shoulder to offer the perfect boxy-fit and a tailored shoulder bag with pockets.
“It’s all about the silhouette, that’s really important. And the ability to layer items, so anyone who wants to slowly buy our pieces can do that, and they can wear them all year round.”
Hakim, on the Sans Patrie look
The collection has minimal branding, is dark, made to last, and “look better as it ages”. It’s inspired by skateboarding culture, “guided by nostalgia”, but the cut and fit elevate the items beyond the streets and give them a kaleidoscopic quality so they can dial up, or down, an outfit.
“I want to take things back to where it all started for me, when we were skating,” Musquet explains, “With the baggy jeans. With everything about comfort. Going back to our roots and re-creating what we were wearing then.”
The pieces are made to work individually, slot organically into any wardrobe, and are priced for accessibility, with each retailing around £100. They’re basic but tell a sophisticated story at an entry-level price.
Sans Patrie, which translates to “no homeland”, is a brand with a conscience, and wants to be as inclusive, and affordable as possible. Musquet is of French and Caribbean heritage, moved around a lot as a kid, and attended a school for the disadvantaged in his youth.
“The mantra of the brand is, ‘one world’. Sans Patrie is about there being no nation, everyone being united, so we want to make clothes for everyone,” Musquet adds.
Delphin Musquet on Sans Patrie
Musquet has always loved clothes and expressing himself sartorially and through the tattoos he wears on his skin. As an up-and-coming teen skateboarder in France, Musquet did this on the cheap, with a DIY attitude, mimicking his idols at the time, the Piss Drunx crew, misfit skateboarders who rode and raised hell like punk rockers.
“I’ve always customised my own stuff, so it isn’t the same as everyone else’s,” Musquet, dressed in a series of layered, personally-cropped, white t-shirts, baggy jeans, and cap, says.
“I’ve never liked to wear other people’s brands because I’ve never related to them. I want to create clothes for my community that represent me.”
Skateboarding is central to the Sans Patrie story and aesthetic. The sport is how Musquet and Hakim met, at London’s famed Southbank Skatepark over a decade ago, and informed their personal style.
“In skating, we always dressed different… but wore blank clothing,” Hakim explained.
“When we sweated out a t-shirt we turned it inside out. Trousers, sometimes we had to cut the trousers because we couldn’t skate in them, or it was Summer and we needed shorts. Shoes, we just glued them up.”
Musquet has released clothing – scarves, hoodies, t-shirts, bags – under Sans Parie before, but the new collection is a step-up.
“We make clothes, we don’t make merchandise,” he says, keen to separate his tattooing from his clothing line.
“The brand,” Musquet explains, “is about using the culture, who we are, city kids, from a skateboarding background, coming through the tattoo industry, and the fashion industry, as designers, as models.”
Related Links: