Julian Roberts is a man of many talents - designer, pattern-cutter, teacher... Having shown numerous collections at London F
ashion Week, taught Subtraction cut-
ting (his unique brand of pattern-cutting) workshops across the globe, done such ab- surd things as putting a model to bed draped in his clothes to show a collection, sold
his own fashion label on eBay for £235 and even become the youngest professor in the UK - he isn’t about to put his creative talent to waste any time soon...
What was your upbringing and childhood like? Did you always see yourself as a creative person? My parents were both very religious. My dad’s a vicar, so I was often dressed up in voluminous robes and stuck at the back of the church with a collection bowl looking cute to collect pocket change. I was particularly effective at weddings, I’ve been to hundreds, and the graveyards were always our playground. At one point I was pretty convinced that Jesus would appear to me and my hands and feet would start bleeding like other lucky Saints, but it never happened. Once a bird flew in through my bedroom window and fluttered around inside, and I was convinced it was god, but I couldn’t be cer- tain. By the time I was 15 I’d given up on religion, sucked in and spat out the other side in search of less fictional stories. I had a great childhood, it seemed to be sunny more often than not. I always loved art, but I was a scientist, archaeologist and chef be- fore I was ever an artist. I was a computer geek when computers were things you had to write programmes for, not play games on or communicate through. I used to break down elaborate orchestral music scores into numeri- cal values and input them into computers in huge number strings pages and pages long - that was my idea of real fun, alongside diving for bricks, riding my BMX, British bulldog, drawing ‘Wanted!’ posters for imaginary criminals, and mixing dangerous chemicals I’d stolen from school.
How would you describe subtraction cutting in the simplest way possible? How did you start cutting this way? Subtraction Cutting is creating hollow 3D shapes through the strate- gic design of 2D pattern.
I always loved diagrams and cross sections, and looking at things from odd angles, and I was an obsessive student that worked crazily hard to test the possibilities. I also smoked a fair amount of can- nabis at a time when important connections were being formed in
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my mind, which helped my brain relax enough to appreciate more unusual methodologies and thought processes.
Simple answers don’t always give the best description, I’ve a lot to say about cutting.
The shapes that subtraction cutting produce are so different to conventional styles - do you feel that you succeeded commer- cially during your time showing your collections? If commercial success is owning property and lots of assets, and hav- ing a perfume, shops and highstreet licence brand named after you, then no - I haven’t been very successful at all. I’ve failed abysmally. I succeeded in doing the best I could to show and demonstrate my work and challenge peoples thinking on shoestring budgets with very little sponsorship or financial support - that is quite some achievement, year on year. I haven’t been dragged along by press hype or financial impetus, but rather motivated by the mad belief that it is the designer’s job to push creative boundaries and be unconventional, which has allowed me to show 13 imperfect col- lections, win a few awards, have shows and exhibitions abroad many times, become the UK’s youngest Professor, resign the title, and go on to lecture independently at 30 universities around the world. It only sounds impressive when you put it in words, when it’s your life and you’re in the middle of living it you know you still have a long, long way to go, and better get your skates on.
What has been the most enjoyable thing you have worked on to date, and why?
When I was at college I made 3 scroll sketchbooks each 25 ft long. One of them was screen printed in my girlfriends bedroom at her parents house, for which I had to woodwork my own screens, construct an exposing unit, and concoct my own screenprinting inks from wallpaper paste. Another of the sketchbooks was a single 25 ft image drawn in meticulous fine-line black pen that took days to
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