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Our second favourite thing about Meadham Kirchhoff is that they (allegedly) refuse to lend anything to Sam Cam, but our favourite is the fantastical theatre and costume of every show. Insi-De Fashion East’s illustrious Piccadilly town house – they created a morning-after squat full of beautiful lost boys, called WALLFLOWER. “They all live like a little family,” Benjamin Kirchhoff told i-D, “but they’re all very alone at the end of the day. The only thing I said to them was, ‘This is your space, and all the visitors are intruding.’” So, unwelcome, we visited an odd environment that reminded us of Pinocchio’s depraved Pleasure Island, where boys drank and turned slowly into donkeys. Clutching cuddly elephants and teddy bears, napping on Princess Jasmine bed spreads and porno mags, the Meadham Kirchhoff kids were surrounded by last night’s party; bottles of Blossom Hill and Pepto Bismol, and bags of breakfast cereals, littered both messy spaces. The boys had colourful dyes staining their hands, slogans scrawled across their faces, and were dressed in magpie mixes of tight shell-suit bottoms, silk scarves knotted around neon socks, floral pastel shirts and bright blue Air Jordans (and occasionally eyebrows). “I wanted the blue to be very aggressive,” said Benjamin. “There’s a scene from the movie Possession, where the main character only dresses in blue… and with the soundtrack, I wanted it to be like fifteen boys’ individual trains of thoughts.” So French love songs, grunge lullabies – like ‘Hole’s Violet’ – and strange musical show tunes skipped from room to room; and the overall effect was of another world, away from the everyday, of Peter Pan or The Dreamers.
Text: Dean Kissick
Photography: Mitchell Sams
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