Text by Brian James // Model : Julia Radchenko @twinkle_juls & Stefan Pierre Tomlin @itsstefan // Photographer : Giselle Palou @kosmogyralvisions & Abigail Ford @abigaildaneford
Nominal London is a unisex luxury fashion label that pays homage to the city’s subcultural heritage, deconstructing and reinterpreting those iconic 20th century countercultures with a 21st century sensibility. Referencing and reimagining the rebel attitude that defined those emblematic eras, Nominal London is much more than a fashion imprint.
Channeling the same marriage of fashion, music and art which coalesced to conceive and immortalize seminal style tribes such as Mod and Punk, design duo Krisztina Kalman and Sean Solomon have taken that trinity of cultural touchstones as the basis for their artistic vision. It’s one that places fashion at its core, but which also transcends that discipline. One that also embraces art and music to create an environment and community that brings like-minded humans together through carefully curated multi-faceted experiential events.
Coming from very different backgrounds and dissimilar multi-chaptered careers, Krisztina and Sean met serendipitously, finding their synthesis point in a shared love of fashion and the arts. Initially coming together in 2022 as a creative platform to make the type of garments they couldn’t find elsewhere that motivation quickly metamorphized into a desire to make clothes for others who wish to dress in an unapologetically self – expressive way.
Nominal London officially launched last year and 2023 saw the brand collaborating with artist Dzidzia Wilk whose signature vibrant colour palette and bold brushstrokes adorned a selection of Nominal pieces. With an ethos that’s committed to inclusivity, last September the design duo took a deliciously decadent, genderless collection out onto the capital streets, bringing their London Fashion Week show to the people. This February saw Nominal continue to explore their rebellious roots and punk-infused inspirations with a collection entitled “Nominal School of Defiance” and the label recently hosted a triptych of mid-summer multi-disciplinary events which included the premier of a capsule collection designed in collaboration with renowned mosaic artist Ed Chapman.
Flanelle sat down with Krisztina and Sean to discuss this latest collaboration, the influences that have shaped and molded the distinctive Nominal aesthetic and the separate paths that converged to bring them together.
For those who might be new to the brand, how would you describe the Nominal London aesthetic?
Sean – It evolved a lot over the last year. We started in one area and were thinking is this it because even before making a single bit of fashion Krisztina and I had spent nine months around the table , back and forth , trying all sorts of things , thinking what do we mutually value , what’s something that we can build into this brand that in ten years’ time both of us can look back and say I see a piece of myself here.
Thats where we started to look at the influences we both share and came to find the subcultures that are affiliated with London. Areas where we see pieces of ourselves and have memories. We could be talking about rock n roll, about punk, about the mods and maybe even the goths and grunge back in the early noughties. Also, the influence of other subcultures such as grime and drill and hip hop have also had an influence on the way that London expresses itself creatively and in a fashion sense.
We have always said that we want something broad enough that allows us to explore a lot of things over the time that Nominal London is going to be alive. We also wanted to be specific enough that you can point to it and that people know the reference. That’s where we’ve landed on, contemporary British iconoclast fashion. Typically, iconoclast stands for pushing or fighting against established beliefs or notions so that’s pretty much a rebel.
Why Nominal London, what made you choose this name?
Sean – It’s typical fashion irony, we believe that none of us or our tribe or anyone who engages with Nominal is normal or nominal or negligible or small. Our logo is the exclamation mark which we have called the icon and the whole point of it is to represent an individual and how iconic a person can be. We encourage everyone within the tribe and anyone who engages with the brand to be an icon in their own right. Nominal really came and the exclamation mark came as the message stated to come together. There are three or four dictionary definitions and in each definition, we represent the opposite of that.
In what ways does London inspire and influence the brand?
Krisztina and Sean – London has always been a fashion centre of the world in some sort of way so London has always influenced mainstream or underground fashion that’s then gone global at some point. We both live and met in London so when getting to know each other and what this brand is going to represent, London is the area where we can both find commonalities. Subsequently trying to build the brand and this tribe and this community, the whole idea is to have people in the community who can share and resonate with us.
How did you meet and what brought you together?
Sean – We met in a member’s club in an environment that most Londoners don’t know about. In this particular Club that happened every Thursday, on that day we were feeling very confident, all dressed to the nines so that’s how we stumbled across each other saying “I like your outfit”. That’s when Krisztina first mentioned that she’s starting a fashion brand. I said that sounds amazing, I would love to be a part of it. When you’re drunk and you meet people and you all kind of promise each other the world, and nothing ever comes of it but then safe to say two or three months after we went out for lunch, we talked over it a bit more and the rest is history, pretty much.
We share the same message, the same morality, the same love of creativity and artistry. As much as Krisztina and I are different we share a mutual love of these things and I believe that’s what drives us to be ambitious and motivated to build a brand that looks like Nominal does.
I think the key word there is trust, because when you know that you function differently, and you know that you think differently you have to trust that you have the same goal in mind. You know that this person isn’t going to do any funny business, you know that they are doing things to reach the same shared goal and doing the best they know how. I believe it takes a little bit of time for people to build up that level of trust and you have to have a few very personal conversations to allow each other to know what makes the other person tick.
Krisztina – If it weren’t for this members club we wouldn’t have met because we are in completely different circles and this forum offered the opportunity for very different people to meet and I very much appreciated two things , trust , we built trust between us and I can rely on Sean and he can rely on me that we push forward the business.
So, this is a joint dream. We both have the same dream and we both are willing to invest in this. Often people are looking for short-term benefits or income as opposed to longer-term and this is why very often businesses remain with one person and that’s not necessarily the best for moving forward so you need a team. The two of us balance each other very well. Sometimes I can be a bit too harsh and sometimes Sean balances me and then I am probably more exact than Sean in some things and I balance this. That’s the benefit of having a trusted team.
We are very different, and this is very unique for Nominal as companies are very often homogenous.
Can you tell us about your careers before launching Nominal London and the catalyst for moving from those to starting a fashion brand?
Krisztina – I was a commodity researcher and mainly focusing on base metals and precious metals and diamonds. I built up a successful company which is still going on and this was my life. Moving onto the fashion business was a dream of mine, I wanted to have an activity which is more expressive dealing with more creative people, and this is basically being in an environment which is completely different from the previous environment. I think this is somehow covering two different sides of me, the analytical side and the creative side and probably the creative side came up a bit short in the past. I realized that I had the opportunity to have a different life and why not try something new in this framework and try to make it work for me.
There are a huge amount of transferable skills. Commodity research is definitely not as different in the way that both are problem solving but the fashion business is much more complicated for me as I am juggling. Commodity research is very linear, you get a proposal, you develop products and so on, but in the fashion business, sometimes I also panic because we are juggling with so many things and we are dealing with so much uncertainty which I’m not used to from my commodity business. What happened to us yesterday, for example waiting for weeks and then everything happens at the same time.
Sean – I moved to London in 2018 to model, that was the goal to create a career. Music had always been close to me, but I didn’t know how to express that although it was something I enjoyed. I knew that creatively, as a whole, this was somewhere where I belonged. I worked in the modelling space, however after a little while I recognized this isn’t quite me.
Modelling allowed me to gain a lot of transferable skills and also build a network. And through that network I then started managing two artists within the music space which was an amazing journey in itself. Half of the things that I do and can do in the Nominal space I learned to do managing these two artists. My belief was that if I don’t really know yet what I’m going to do with my life I know some amazingly talented people around me so let’s see if I can help them get to where they want to be until I know where I want to be.
I worked with them for about three years and that’s when I started to find my own creative areas of DJ ‘ng, A & R and to create by connecting people. Finding people whose styles or personalities complement each other so let’s see if we can make some art together. Fast forward to a couple of years later and I meet Krisztina, and the rest is history.
How do you apportion roles and responsibilities and what crossover is there between your respective CEO and Creative Director titles?
Krisztina – The CEO and Creative Director titles are really just that, titles. We do everything together. Before this interview we were talking about investment plans together and then tomorrow we are talking together about a new collection. Of course, I have a financial MBA so I am doing the business model while Sean has more experience with hands-on design and the music side of our events. So obviously we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but we have a very close working relationship developing the vision.
Sean – I was actually saying to somebody last week that at the moment a large part of me is more creative than business and a large part of Krisztina is more business than creative. However, as we’ve been working together there’s been a dilution of those elements from being say 70/30 to over time slowly diluting to 50/50 as were both developing our skill sets and learning more things.
Krisztina laughs – Maybe Sean will do the next business plan and excel sheet.
You’ve recently launched a capsule collection designed in collaboration with renowned mosaic artist Ed Chapman. How did you connect and how exciting was it working with such a renowned artist so early in Nominal’s existence?
Krisztina – As usual with our collaborations it’s some kind of personal connection. With Ed what happened was that we were in Kings Road visiting a gallery and we saw one of his art pieces. We contacted him on Instagram and when he was in London we met up. It’s all about building trust because this was an unusual way for him to collaborate as well and it’s interesting as we see this very often, we need to create trust that this is something of value to all of us. We met last Autumn, and we kept in touch and then we showed him our second art collaboration and he liked it very much and we convinced him to collaborate with us. On the leather jacket, he did an original mosaic art piece for us.
Sean – When we looked at Eds artwork, the piece that we saw at the Clarendon art gallery was an image of Marilyn Monroe and we have always thought about utilizing the term icon so it it was an immediate no-brainer to connect modern-day icons, people who have inspired others to connect them with us. That’s why even with our Slogan Tees we have taken them from like our favourite films as these are artforms which have inspired us.
When we looked at Ed’s Marilyn Monroe piece and his other artwork such as Jimi Hendrix especially how rogue Jimi was and how innovative he was with regards to his skills on the guitar and Nominals association and love of music it’s an ode to the influences that we want to have as a brand in the future.
The marriage of fashion with art and music is at the core of the brand identity as we saw at the series of events you recently hosted at Smiths’ of Smithfield. How important to you is it to bring this multi-disciplinary approach and vision to fashion?
Sean – It’s paramount, its core to the brand in my opinion. It’s what allows us to create unique experiences and unique collaborations. Blending these mediums, we view it as a clash of worlds. Nominal is a great representation of the clash of the worlds where you have people from music mixing with people from fashion or people from art mixing with people from fashion. I also think its slightly directive of Krisztina and my births and relationships within Nominal as we are also clashing two worlds together and finding really interesting and unique ways in which we can manifest and put out work that the world can then look at and say I haven’t seen this before and this is interesting. It’s all about representing the collaborative and inspirational side of things.
Krisztina – It’s also so interesting that when I speak to friends, they appreciate this aspect of the tribe, that we bring so many different people together, black and white. We bring the South African music into our white communities as well, and so it’s all about mixing and taking parts from different cultures and bringing them together. I think that Sean and I are a living representation of how that works. You don’t need to have a black brand or a white brand, it’s about understanding and bringing together the gifts of each culture.
Who in the worlds of fashion, art and music most inspires you and why?
Krisztina – I’ve always loved and admired Vivienne Westwood. She comes from a very traditional background, she was a teacher, she broke through this and created something unique, and in some ways, I feel that I’m following in her footsteps in terms of coming from Eastern Europe and coming from married life. She was able to reinvent herself a number of times and I admire her for this.
We shouldn’t forget Virgil. Sean and I often share his interview quotes as he very much represented what we are looking for. It’s about a tribe, bringing people together and creating more than fashion. I think that this was his secret for all the brands he touched.
Sean – His collections show this majorly and I didn’t quite recognize how influential or innovative he was until now when I’m seeing other people at the helm, others who I would think were inspired by him to take things forward but can’t quite do what he was doing. I think there are a lot of nuances to why this is, but they just can’t get it yet.
For me, there’s a bunch of people but two people at the top. If I look back at my own style inspirations and how I like to design and work and the message I like to send it’s ASAP Rocky and Kanye West. They are major influences for me in how to present and how to be creative.
Community is key to the Nominal vision. How do you want the Nominal tribe to feel about themselves and our world when they wear your pieces or attend your events?
Krisztina – This is one of the key questions that we have recently been exploring. Nominal is not solely a fashion brand, we run events, and we want to develop a private members club. In terms of the fashion side we have big plans, we want to expand that along with the community and events sides. We asked ourselves what the common denominator is and it’s selling a feeling of belonging to a creative and self-expressive community. Sean and I met in an environment where someone had provided a platform for creative people to meet up, to network and to enjoy each other’s company. That environment is missing, and people love coming to our events whether it’s models, musicians, investors, everyone comes together and stays for the entire day.
Sean – I think it’s also important given the state of the world at the moment that there’s a lot of conscious effort by some parties to create division amongst a lot of different demographics. I think another key component in people who belong to our Nominal tribe is that we want them to feel that they are in a safe space where they can connect with this person and that person. Everywhere else people are saying stick with your people, you can’t trust these other people.
Having reached the mid-point of 2024 what are your goals and aspirations for the second half of the year and beyond?
Krisztina – We definitely want to grow. Immediately we have London Fashion Week in September and our representation there is still not finalized but we will very likely go back to our catwalk on the streets, which is all about bringing fashion to the people. Not like a normal catwalk or presentation which are usually by invitation only and for people such as buyers. We think that fashion belongs to the people, and we want to bring the catwalk to the people. We also want to grow into the European market and grow the fashion and events side.
Sean – There’s all sorts of things planned for September and what we showcase. We always want to put our best foot forward and show ideas that are interesting, cool and different. The one thing that were not short of ideas.
In melding the worlds of fashion, art and music for a community that has inclusive values and exclusive tastes, Nominal London is eschewing the tried-and-tested fashion formula for a new way of sharing their creativity and vision. With fashion access often remaining the preserve of those already established in the industry, taking their fashion shows out onto London’s streets is just one of the many ways in which they are doing things differently.
Describing themselves as purveyors of art, that world-building philosophy manifests itself not only in pieces that thrill the eye but also in the breadth and width of their collaborations with renowned artists and musicians. In finding a fashion language that crosses boundaries of art form, gender and societal norms Nominal London’s reading of the capital’s cultural codes and innate ability to reference those moments in time to create boldly contemporary designs, it’s no surprise that Nominal London are a brand on an upward trajectory.
While they may be named Nominal there’s nothing nominal about the radical eclecticism and unapologetic escapism which defines their brand aesthetic and vision. We’d suggest that Nominal London is a brand you should definitely get to know.
Many thanks to Krisztina and Sean for speaking to Flanelle.
You can connect with the brand here – https://nominallondon.com/ and on IG https://www.instagram.com/nominallondon/
