Charles Jeffrey’s New Wedgwood Collaboration Is a Subversive Riff on a British Classic

Having first crossed paths while studying at Central Saint Martins in the early 2010s, when Bastin and Jeffrey reconnected towards the end of last year, they immediately bonded over their mutual interest in drawing parallels between the history of design and cutting-edge techniques today. (Case in point: Jeffrey’s recent spring 2024 collection, which not only featured a final trio of looks that crafted vintage Wedgwood china into armor-like panels, but harnessed the power of AI to decorate pieces inspired by the bawdy spirit of the 17th-century Stuart Restoration.) “I think that even though Loverboy is a kind of subcultural, anarchic brand, it’s always been steeped in traditionalism as well,” says Jeffrey, citing his stints training on Savile Row and designing uniforms for the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. “I’m always interested in that balance of chaos and control.”

For Bastin, too, what might at first appear a radical proposition made more sense when she began familiarizing herself with the history of the brand—and more specifically, learning about its founder, Josiah Wedgwood. While Wedgwood may today be best remembered for his pottery, in his time, he was also a philanthropist and an abolitionist, becoming one of the country’s leading voices advocating for the end of the Atlantic slave trade. And while his business acumen may have transformed the worlds of manufacturing and retail forever, perhaps his greatest legacy is the spirit of creativity he fostered around Wedgwood, bringing some of the most prominent artists and thinkers of his time into the brand’s orbit via his involvement with the Lunar Society dinner club.

“What we really want to do, in the spirit of Josiah, is to make Wedgwood this creative hub—allowing artists to come in, and really give them total freedom of expression in how they want to approach these projects,” Bastin adds. “I really do believe if Josiah was here, he’d be really excited about it.”

In Jeffrey’s case, the work naturally began with a trip to the brand’s archives and factory at Barlaston in Staffordshire, where craftspeople still work today making pieces by hand. “We got to see how certain things were put together, how you fire the product, how all the individual things are made,” Jeffrey recalls. From there, he became most intrigued by an array of shiny glazes, working in contrast to the matte surfaces for which the brand is best known. “It was really a case of playing around,” he says of his work testing various illustrations across the pre-loved pieces. “It was very DIY.”