Two young teenage boxers from Celbridge, Co Kildare, star in a new fashion campaign shot by the award winning photographer/filmmaker Perry Ogden and launched in London on Monday in collaboration with Daniel Kearns, creative director of British menswear brand Kent & Curwen.
Liam (16) and Paddy (15) Doran, from the travelling community, front the company’s autumn/winter brochure “The Boxer, the Artist and the Musician” a special series of portraits. The two appear in a short film by Ogden, evoking the mood of the winter season focusing on real people and the rituals and routines they perform before undertaking their chosen fields, be it boxing, music or art.
From a cast that includes 34 people, one young London boxer from the famous Repton Boxing Gym in Bethnal Green, an amateur club which can trace its history back to 1880s, says that “preparation is everything,” a theme that resonates throughout.
Dubliner Kearns, who has been transforming the British heritage brand in partnership with David Beckham, is fascinated by the history of such sporting institutions. “London is a melting pot of cultures and tribes and it made sense to collaborate with Perry who has documented British culture for the past twenty years through his photographs – which are raw, authentic and resonate with what we stand for,” he says.
Kearns stresses that Beckham’s participation is “very hands-on” and the idea for the project arose from a conversation about boxing with him, since the former footballer has now taken up the sport. Beckham attended the London launch with his teenage son Romeo and other family members, including his mother and sister, and an informal lunch afterwards held beside the new Kent & Curwen shop in Floral Street, Covent Garden.
The two Irish brothers who joined other boxers, musicians and artists for the collaboration wear items from the collection, but are no strangers to modelling, having worked with Ogden on many of his shoots for H&M and Fred Perry, using backdrops like the Ballinasloe Horse Fair. The brothers have also featured in a number of magazines in the UK and Italy, and also appeared in Glen Hansard's music video for The Lowly Deserter along with other members of their family.
They are also the subjects of a new book, Paddy and Liam, by Ogden well known for his celebrated books Pony Kids and 7 Reece Mews Francis Bacon's Studio, to be published in March/April.
